The brand-new Dickson-based Inner North nurse-led Walk-in Centre will open its doors tomorrow (Wednesday 26 August), providing free treatment for minor injuries and illness 365 days a year.
The Inner North Walk-in Centre is now one of five such facilities servicing Canberra, with the existing centres located in Tuggeranong, Weston Creek (currently only for COVID testing), West Belconnen and Gungahlin.
The Inner North Walk-in Centre will be co-located with the Community Health Centre in Dickson and includes multi-use treatment rooms that may be used as either Walk-in Centre treatment spaces or for community health services.
Community health services include podiatry and footcare, maternal and child health services and one-on-one appointments with nurses.
The ACT Government invested more than $10 million towards the Centre’s construction and operation, with the Centre to be staffed by 16 additional nurses and an administration team of four.
More than 70 nurses and clinicians work across the ACT’s five Walk-in Centres.
Since 2014, Canberra’s network of Walk-in Centres has treated more than 282,000 patients, and presentations continue to grow year on year with more than 67,000 in 2019.
ACT Chief Minister Andrew Barr said community health facilities like the Walk-In Centre provide an alternative to the emergency department for people with minor injuries and illness.
“We know how much Canberrans value this sort of community health facility, and we want to see them distributed throughout the city.
“We will look to this model as a good way of delivering community health services in an expanding city.”
The flexibility of the model enabled Canberra Health Services to quickly adapt the Weston Creek centre into a dedicated COVID-19 testing clinic, assessing thousands of Canberrans since April.
The Inner North Walk-in Centre is located at 111 Dickson Place, Dickson and will be open 7.30am-10pm every day of the year.
Other projects underway across the ACT health system include: the major Canberra Hospital expansion; the Centenary Hospital for Women and Children Expansion Project; and the Northside Opioid Treatment Service at the Belconnen Community Health Centre.
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