Moree is set to receive a brand new hospital, with the state government committing $80 million to completely rebuild a state-of-the-art hospital precinct.
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Northern Tablelands MP Adam Marshall and Moree mayor Katrina Humphries announced the news to members of the community on Friday, just five months after a community campaign was launched to petition the state government to provide funding to demolish and construct a brand new hospital.
With more than 5,000 signatures collected on the petition, Mr Marshall said the government has heard the community's plea and, as a result, committed $80 million to build a brand new hospital.
“I’m absolutely thrilled to announce, along with Katrina, that we have won that battle," he said.
"We are going to get $80 million dollars to completely build a brand new hospital here at Moree."
The new hospital will be rebuilt on the current site, to include a new helipad and possibly a new ambulance station co-located in the health precinct.
"The idea is to create a health precinct with primary and allied care," Mr Marshall said.
"We've already got a renal dialysis unit, that’s not going to be knocked down, that’ll stay but everything else that you can see in front of you now will virtually be built brand-new to create a modern, first-class, health precinct that’s going to serve this community for decades to come."
With the Armidale and Inverell hospital projects valued at $60 million each, Mr Marshall said the Moree project will be "the biggest and the best".
"This will be the largest health project anywhere in this region and, I think, the largest project in Moree, of any kind, for decades," he said.
"And rightly so. This district hospital is one of the busiest anywhere in the New England North West, simply because of the location of Moree. You do more operations here, you have more presentations to emergency than any other district hospital in my electorate, even much more than Inverell, even though statistically, it’s a larger community.
"This hospital is really vital, not just for Moree but for so many communities, even out much further west from here that gravitate in for the health services here, whether it’s renal, whether it's ops, whether it's chemo, whether it’s community health, dental, whatever it is, this hospital is so important."
Cr Humphries was thrilled with the news and thanked Mr Marshall for his support and the community who were "so diligent" in collecting so many signatures on the petition.
“We’re very, very excited at this great event," she said.
"I can’t recall a bigger bunch of money. When you put it into perspective, we got $40 million for redoing the roads after the floods. So $80 million is a huge amount of money, it’s exciting and it’s exactly what we deserve."
Not only will the new hospital help attract and retain specialists and other medical staff to Moree, it will also include state-of-the-art equipment to cater for the future health needs of the community.
"We don’t need people to be leaving our community to have MRIs and all that sort of thing," Cr Humphries said.
"We need to be able to do all those sort of investigative medical procedures here, so people can be with their families and don’t have to go to the expense, the huge expense, of travelling away.
“I can’t reiterate enough the need that we have to keep our birthing unit here. Nobody wants to leave country to have a baby, it should be the happiest time of people’s life."
The new facility will not only benefit the Moree shire, but people from other shires who travel to Moree for health services.
Cr Humphries said it's also the perfect time to be doing large infrastructure projects to "keep the wheels turning" in the community that is currently suffering as a result of the drought.
"We’ve got to keep those industry wheels turning, keep people employed and keep people in the community," she said.
“Bring it on, can’t wait, very excited."
The funding is a commitment by the current state government. Mr Marshall said the project will go ahead, regardless of whether he is re-elected in the upcoming state election on March 23, as long as the Coalition government remains in power.
Mr Marshall said the planning process will take some time, between 12 and 16 months, but work could begin by the end of 2020.
"The planning work will take some time because we’ve got to measure twice and cut once, I always believe, to make sure we get a hospital that’s going to work for the medical staff, for the community, and cater for our needs for the future," he said.
“We've also got make sure we can knock down and build new, while at the same time continuing to offer medical services here. There's a fair bit of planning work and logistics [working out] how that’ll happen so people can still access services while we’re building a new hospital."
