4 June 2018

Canberra Hospital pool closing with new hydrotherapy facility set to open in Bruce

| Ian Bushnell
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The new hydrotherapy pool at the University of Canberra Hospital has a smoother entry for wheelchair and ambulatory access, flat surrounding surface and hoist. Photo: Supplied.

The hydrotherapy pool at Canberra Hospital will close in July to make way for a new facility at the University of Canberra Hospital in Bruce.

Minister for Health and Wellbeing Meegan Fitzharris said the new state-of-the-art hydrotherapy pool would better meet the needs of the ACT community and it had always been the Government’s intention to fully transition all rehabilitation services throughout Canberra to the new facility in Bruce.

“UCH offers patients a state-of-the-art facility for rehabilitation outside an acute hospital setting, such as Canberra Hospital and Calvary Public Hospital Bruce. It offers a more therapeutic environment that will promote recovery and encourage activity, independence and autonomy,” the Minister said.

“The new hydrotherapy pool at UCH will feature enhanced access compared to the current facility at Canberra Hospital. It has a smoother entry for wheelchair and ambulatory access, flat surrounding surface and hoist, less maintenance downtime and more accurate and stable temperature controls.”

Ms Fitzharris said bringing all of ACT Health’s rehabilitation staff and facilities together in the one place would result in better outcomes for patients.

“Patients will be able to access the hydrotherapy pool, gym and purpose-built therapy courtyards within the same facility. Moving rehabilitation services into the one health facility provides the opportunity to streamline appointments and will save Canberrans from having to travel to various locations across the ACT to access these services,” she said.

She said the Government was working to ensure good access to services, such as public transport, to support those who would be using the new hospital.

“ACT Health is also working with community organisations and service providers who currently use facilities at Canberra Hospital to ensure the transition of these services for their clients is as seamless as possible,” Ms Fitzharris said.

The new pool would be available for therapeutic use out-of-hours by non-ACT Health services and paediatric services, in the same way the as the pool at Canberra Hospital.

Referrals to the new pool can be made by ACT Health clinical staff, physiotherapists, general practitioners, medical practitioners and the UCH intake team.

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Another cut from the south to give to the north. Light rail will never happen.

If the new Weston pool has a sauna and a spa like the Perth public pools have it would help greatly in the rehab in the community ben.

underwhelmed5:19 am 05 Jun 18

Wow! So let me get my head around this wonderful bit of planning form this North Centric local Government. I thought not too long ago that they were centralizing health services around the Canberra Hospital? I also thought they said that the south side had the older demographic that you would suspect would need these kind of facilities more than the younger demographic that is found on the North side? And you would think that the best place to place these facilities would be in a geographically central position so everyone could easily access these facilities? Last time I had a look at a map of Canberra the Canberra hospital is far more central than the new facility in Bruce. I’m just waiting for the news that they are moving TCH North 🙂

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