October MPS start

WORK on the long awaited Adelong/Batlow MPS project is finally expected to start in October this year, with completion planned for the end of 2007.

During this period it is also expected the Adelong Community Health Centre will receive its $250,000 upgrade, which has also been long awaited.

The tender for the MPS replacement for the Batlow Hospital, which will be built on a greenfields site using former railway land, is expected to go out in August, and the contract awarded in October, the MPS committee has been told.

The MPS steering committee chairperson, Diana Droscher was one of those who attended a meeting at Berrigan last week, along with Mr Chon Young from Rice Daubney, the appointed architect to design the Adelong/Batlow MPS, and Steve butt, manager of Asset Management of GSAHS, and other GSAHS representatives.

Also present were representatives from the Junee and Berrigan MPS Project Steering Committees, as all three projects are running concurrently.

It was the third such meeting with the architect and saw the third Draft Plan presented to the Adelong/Batlow MPS Committee and the Batlow Hospital Staff.

The draft plan was discussed and further minor changes have been made, however the final draft plan is taking shape and according to the steering committee is looking good.

Following the positive comments about the draft plan from both hospital staff and the MPS Committee the draft plan has now gone on public exhibition.

The draft plan can be viewed at the Batlow Hospital and Adelong/Batlow residents are being encouraged to have a look at the draft plan and make comment.

The project includes 10 hostel beds, 8 nursing home beds, one respite bed, one palliative care bed and four acute care beds.

That compares with the six nursing home beds and six acute care beds in the existing hospital.

The new MPS will also incorporate a relocated Batlow Ambulance Station, accident and emergency facilities, a community health area and nurses' residence accommodation.

News of a start on the project later this year has and brought a heavy sigh of relief in many quarters.

Batlow has been agitating for a replacement for its old hospital building dating back to 1997. In 1999 the Sinclair Committee was confronted by a turnout of several hundred people in the Batlow Literary Institute

The following year the MPS was promised, and many were led to believe it would be up and running by2003.

Less than two years ago there was concern that the $7 million commitment for the project would not be enough to see the facility constructed to the size and standard deemed necessary (the projected cost of which is around $10 million), but whilst there has bee no official statement on that matter, the scope of the project appears to be such that the full magnitude envisaged will indeed be funded.

Meanwhile the Adelong/Batlow MPS Committee says it is also keen for community members to come forward with ideas for fundraising to raise money to purchase items for the MPS, in order to give it a personal and homely feel, things like painting~, art works, pot plants and landscaping; etc.

The MPS Committee this week acknowledged and thanked the communities effort.

Tumut & Adelong Times

January 2006