STAFF left without jobs following the impending closure of Geelong Private Hospital have been thrown a lifeline, with 117 positions to be made available at Barwon Health and the site to potentially become a new hospital.<\/p>\n
On Friday last week, Minister for Health Jill Hennessy announced the positions for Geelong Private Hospital workers would include nursing, allied health, administration and patient services assistant positions.<\/p>\n
The next day, Premier Daniel Andrews announced the state government would immediately invest $10 million to identify options for converting the hospital on Ryrie Street into a women\u2019s and children\u2019s hospital.<\/p>\n
The study will look at options to deliver additional maternity and paediatric services for Geelong families, as well as more inpatient beds, delivery rooms, operating theatres and clinics.<\/p>\n
\u201cWe\u2019re planning for the establishment of a world-class women\u2019s and children\u2019s hospital that will give Geelong families the full suite of services they need, closer to home,\u201d Mr Andrews said.<\/p>\n
Additional positions will also be made available at Mercy Health and Western Health, who will work with HealthScope to match nurses and other staff members with vacancies at their sites.<\/p>\n
An expression of interest process was to begin this week.<\/p>\n
Affected workers will still receive their entitlements from HealthScope, including redundancy payments.<\/p>\n
Nurses and other health care workers support Victorians at the toughest of times, and we\u2019ll support them during this challenging period,\u201d Ms Hennessy said.<\/p>\n
\u201cThese staff are supremely qualified and valuable professionals and they\u2019d be a tremendous asset to Barwon Health.\u201d<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
STAFF left without jobs following the impending closure of Geelong Private Hospital have been thrown a lifeline, with 117 positions to be made available at Barwon Health and the site to potentially become a new hospital. On Friday last week, Minister for Health Jill Hennessy announced the positions for Geelong Private Hospital workers would include […]<\/p>\n