Townsville Hospital

The Townsville Hospital is a public tertiary care hospital in the city of Townsville and serves patients from the entire North Queensland region, with patients from as far as Mount Isa and Cape York being airlifted or transported to the Hospital on a daily basis. The current hospital was completed in October 2001, and is located in the suburb of Douglas. The main referral hospital, Royal Brisbane and Women's Hospital is in Herston, Brisbane (at 1375 kilometers).

The current CEO is Mr. Ken Whelan. During the period 2004/2005, the hospital admitted 41,504 patients, and was visited 416,081 times. The current capacity is at 460 beds. It is affiliated to the University of Queensland, James Cook University, and the Rural Health Training Unit.

The hospital is also a major interchange for the city's Public Transportation company Sunbus.

History

The new hospital started construction in late-1998 and replaced the old Townsville General Hospital that was located in North Ward. The Old Hospital could not expand any further as it had already outgrown its location, and was sometimes, reaching absolute capacity. Though the new hospital is much larger, many patients are often cut short of their time in the hospital due to the hospital reaching capacity and due to an ever increasing waiting list.

Another reason for a new hospital was a matter of suburban centralisation for the entire urban centre.

ervices

* Internal Medicine
* Infectious Diseases service
* Rheumatology Clinic
* Cardiology, including interventional cardiac catheterisation suite and primary angioplasty; cardiac electrophysiology and pacing; heart failure service
* General surgery service
* Orthopedic and Trauma surgery
* Cardiothoracic Surgery
* Neurosurgery
* Intensive Care
* Hyperbaric medicine
* Palliative care
* Oncology Service (radiation and medical)
* Obstetrics and gynaecology service
* Paediatric care
* Plastic surgery
* Psychiatric Department
* Gastroenterology service
* Renal and dialysis service
* Urology
* Dermatology
* Ophthalmology
* Vascular surgery service

References

* [http://www.health.qld.gov.au/wwwprofiles/tville_tville_hosp.asp Facility profile] - Queensland Government. Last retrieved October 24, 2006.
* [http://www.health.qld.gov.au/townsville/Facilities/tville_hosp.asp Hospital introduction] - Queensland Government. Last retrieved October 24, 2006.

External links

* [http://www.health.qld.gov.au/townsville/default.asp Hospital web site]