Paediatric funding in the 2024-25 ACT Budget includes more NICU cots and specialist paediatric ED beds for the new Critical Services Building. Photo: ACT Government.
Molonglo will be the new home for Canberra Health Service’s community paediatric and child health service as part of $57.6 million in new funding to expand paediatric services.
Currently based in Holder, the service delivers the assessment, treatment and advice for children, young people and their families around developmental delays, behavioural issues, physical or intellectual disability for those who aren’t under the care of another paediatrician, and concerns about how a child is behaving at school or coping in a classroom setting.
Health Minister Rachel Stephen-Smith said the time was right for the service to move.
“We’ve had an opportunity to expand the space that’s available there, at the same time as the service in Holder has been struggling with end-of-life infrastructure,” she said.
“So it’s an opportunity to really consolidate those services in an area that is also seeing a growing population of children, young people and young families.”
Money will also be put into establishing a new paediatric critical care team, and $9 million will be spent to expand multidisciplinary rehabilitation services for children with complex and chronic conditions.
Ms Stephen-Smith said the Territory needed to build a bridge between the level of care currently on offer to critically ill children and the care that will continue to be provided in Sydney for those who need to be transferred interstate.
“This is really part of the story of Canberra Hospital emerging from being a regional hospital to being a genuine tertiary trauma referral hospital for the whole southern region of NSW,” she said.
“We simply don’t have the population here in the ACT and the surrounding region to support a full paediatric intensive care unit, but we do know that we need to be able to support children who are deteriorating or in need of critical care at a higher level than we’ve been able to do up until this point.
“We’ll still have to refer children to Sydney … but what we’re aiming to do is to see more children and young people being able to be treated here, and being able to come home earlier to specialist rehabilitation services.”
Paediatric care will be further enhanced through the funding of eight inpatient paediatric beds at Canberra Hospital and an additional $18 million to fund more cots in the Neonatal Intensive Care Unit (NICU) and Special Care Nursery (SCN).
The money will also cover staffing costs for these additional resources.
“This is really about enabling us to flex up and down as we need to throughout the year as that demand changes,” Ms Stephen-Smith said.
Health, housing and cost of living have been the three main pillars of the budget announcements in the lead-up to the document’s official release on Tuesday (25 June).
Chief Minister Andrew Barr said the money going into health represented nearly one in every $3 in the budget.
“The total investment in health next year is $2.6 billion, growing from $2.3 billion in 2023-24,” he said.
“The ACT Government is making record investments in public healthcare to ensure Canberrans can access the right care when and where they need it.”
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