SWAN Hill District Health’s midwifery department is set to get a much needed facelift thanks to a donation from the Friends of the Hospital committee.
From the $80,000 donation, $77,000 will go towards replacing flooring and repainting the walls of the midwifery department, as well as getting new cabinetry if the budget allows.
SHDH chief executive Peter Abraham said it was “paramount” that the community had a comfortable and safe environment at the hospital.
“I think that what you will hear about from our nursing leadership is that it essentially does help to drive a better environment for our team to work in, but also drive better recruitment opportunity for more midwives to come into the place,” Mr Abraham said.
“If we have student midwives come through here with a beautiful-looking facility, they are actually more likely to remember it, and when they finish their training program they might think, ‘Yeah, that wasn’t a bad place to be, I might go back to Swan Hill’.”
Midwifery unit manager Leonie Gilbert said her staff were thrilled when they heard about the donation.
“It gave the staff a real morale boost to see a bit of money spent on the unit to freshen it up,” she said.
The other $3000 of the donation will go towards upgrading the patient bed in the excision room at the Swan Hill Primary Health Medical Centre to meet the current GP registration standards for primary health care.
Mr Abraham expressed his appreciation for the Friends of the Hospital committee in its fundraising.
“Every year they come up with the goods, with a lot of funding for this health service, and particularly in the last three or four years, it has been during COVID, and still they have maintained that shopfront rain, hail or shine,” Mr Abraham said.
“Our board, our health leaders, all of our staff, we really appreciate the work they do – just the dedication of this community is outstanding.”
