Gilbert Building Redevelopment opening events

On Thursday, 12 April 2012, the Federal Minister for Health Tanya Plibersek and South Australian Minister for Health and Ageing John Hill officially opened the Michael Rice Centre for Haematology and Oncology, the Women’s and Children’s Hospital Foundation Breathing Space and the Allan Scott Laboratory, part of the $24 million Gilbert Building Redevelopment Project.

The Michael Rice Centre for Haematology and Oncology

The Michael Rice Centre for Haematology and Oncology, on the fifth floor of the Gilbert Building, is for children and young people with cancer and blood disorders.

It is a specialised and integrated facility, with dedicated areas for inpatients, and for those being treated as outpatients in the clinic. The centre offers considerable advantages for delivering quality clinical care, including:

• Two “negative pressure” areas where infectious patients can be provided with care in a specialist haematology/oncology environment without the threat of infection spreading to other patients in the ward.
• A special lead-lined isolation area (known as an MIBG room) enables radio nuclide therapies to be given to children while not putting staff and other patients at an increased risk of exposure to radiation. The room has a video link to a dedicated “Parents’ Retreat”, so parents and can interact with their children while they undergo this treatment.
• More consulting room space
• A “satellite” pharmacy enables pharmacists to provide patients and their families with support and education about their medication needs.

Other features include: a comfortable ‘home away from home’ environment, with each room with its own ensuite bathroom and desk area for school work or art activities; a large play room with an interactive board for children to watch movies or play video games, or for the hospital school to use with lessons for patients; an adolescent ‘chill out zone’ with a smartboard; and a ‘parents’ retreat’.

The new haematology and oncology facilities are named after the respected paediatric oncologist Dr Michael Rice who has been associated with the hospital for more than 50 years.

The Breathing Space and Allan Scott Laboratory

The Breathing Space, on the sixth floor of the Gilbert Building, will assess patients with respiratory and lung illnesses. The pulmonary function laboratory features negative pressure rooms enabling clinicians to provide the ‘gold standard’ in Cystic Fibrosis spirometry testing.

There are modern medical consulting and rooms for clinical staff, a flexible meeting room space and several workstations for research students.

The Allan Scott Laboratory, also on the sixth floor, will advance research into an airway gene therapy to treat the lung diseases associated with cystic fibrosis.

The Gilbert Building redevelopment has been funded in partnership between the Commonwealth and State Governments, with generous support from the community and charities, including the Women’s and Children’s Hospital Foundation and the Little Heroes Foundation.

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