Canberra’s fifth nurse-led Walk-in Centre, to be located in the Inner North at Dickson, is now a month into construction and is due to be operational by early September.
The construction and subsequent operation of the facility will cost almost $10 million, which includes hiring 10 new full-time equivalent nurses, and three-and-a-half full-time equivalent administration staff.
The Inner North Walk-in Centre will be co-located with the Community Health Centre in Dickson and include 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.
ACT Minister for Health, Rachel Stephen-Smith, said Canberra’s Walk-in Centres have seen nearly 64,000 presentations to date in this financial year.
“The addition of Canberra’s fifth Walk-in Centre in the Inner North will further boost our capacity to provide affordable and accessible health care to Canberrans close to where they live.”
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 Inner-North centre will mark the second Canberra nurse-led walk-in medical centre to be built since the 2016 election, following the completion of the Weston Creek Walk-in Centre late last year.
“This was obviously an area of some political disagreement, and probably still remains the case, but we’re determined to deliver on the commitments we took to the 2016 election,” Mr Barr said.
Other projects under way across the ACT health system include: the second stage of the Weston Community Health Centre upgrade, which comprises four dedicated Women’s, Youth and Children treatment rooms; the Canberra Hospital expansion; the Centenary Hospital for Women and Children expansion project; and establishing a new satellite Northside Opioid Treatment satellite clinic at the Belconnen Community Health Centre.
For more stories like this:
