Swan Hill District Health (SHDH) has marked the next phase of its $48 million emergency department (ED) redevelopment with a traditional smoking ceremony and a cultural dance in a sign of the hospital's commitment to ensuring the new building is welcoming for Indigenous patients.
The revamped ED, which was announced in 2021, will boast larger waiting areas, a four-bed short-stay unit, and mental health treatment rooms.
This month, demolition crews cleared the site of the hospital's former nurses' quarters to make way for the new facility, and on Wednesday members of Swan Hill's Indigenous community led a ceremony to cleanse the ground before construction begins.
"SHDH has taken a stand to close the gap in making this hospital a culturally safe place," said Debra Chaplin from the Aboriginal Health Unit and who performed a Welcome to Country.
"With the smoking of this area and the new emergency department we can only hope it is more welcoming to the mob."
The ED will be located at the corner of McCrae St and High St in Swan Hill and will treat patients from a 100-kilometre radius.
It includes those who live on Wamba Wamba, Latji Latji, Tatti Tatti, Waddi Waddi, and Barapa Barapa country.
The hospital's chief executive Peter Abraham acknowledged that the new ED needed to be a place where residents from all backgrounds could receive quality care and feel welcome.
"This building marks a whole new development phase for SHDH, and having this traditional smoking and cleansing ceremony is critical to it because we know that our local community really rely on this service and their experience in this service is not always great," he said.
"We want to make sure we go into the future with a community that really wants to use this service and wants to be part of it."
'Beautiful' performance
The cleansing ceremony included a cultural routine from local Indigenous dancers which Ms Chaplin said was choreographed specifically for the event.
"We got the boys together and they came up with the idea for the dance — they practiced, they tweaked it and changed it around to what you see today," she said.
"There were work commitments, footy training, and with the hot weather they only had a chance to practice once it cooled down at the park."
"With all those elements against them they did pull together a beautiful performance."
From the ground up
The ED is expected to be operational by 2025 and it is hoped the redevelopment will be the first in a five-stage plan to modernise the entire Swan Hill hospital.
Mr Abraham said SHDH was currently in the process of appointing builders to the project, but he believed construction would be underway by the end of March.
"Once the builder comes on board … you'll see the concrete slab poured and then you'll see the whole thing rising from the red dirt," he said.
"This community has cried out and been absolutely desperate for a new hospital and new services.
"The current ED is really challenging in its size and its shared entry for patients and ambulances. The waiting area is ordinary, to say the least, so our community and staff are really excited about this."
