Westmead Hospital celebrates its 40th birthday
Westmead Hospital has celebrated its 40th birthday today and the first baby ever born in the facility, Bianca English, took part in the festivities.
Bianca joined staff and community members in celebrating how the hospital has changed healthcare in western Sydney and its future commitment to patient care.
Westmead’s birthday celebrations coincide with a community Open Day and visit from NSW Health Minister, Brad Hazzard.
The event included health information stalls, tai chi demonstrations and a sausage sizzle.
The hospital is a world-class tertiary referral hospital providing comprehensive and complex services locally, statewide and nationally.
In 2017-18 alone, the hospital provided care to people on almost 1.6 million occasions.
The hospital also operates one of the busiest emergency departments in New South Wales, treating about 77,000 patients in the last financial year.
Westmead Hospital’s clinical immunology director and a Westmead ‘original’ Professor Graeme Stewart said the vibe at Westmead in the early days was extraordinary.
“We believed clinical care is best delivered with teaching, training and research,” Professor Stewart said.
“That was the mantra of our founding professors of medicine and surgery, the late Prof Peter Castaldi AO and Prof Miles Little.”
The NSW Government’s $1 billion Westmead Hospital Redevelopment – one of the biggest health projects in NSW – will transform health care in Western Sydney and beyond.
The project will deliver a new multi-storey hospital building with more operating theatres, extra inpatient beds and a new emergency department for adults and kids, as well as refurbishments.
When completed in 2020, Westmead Hospital will ensure Western Sydney’s growing population continues to enjoy world-class health care close to home and will further boost jobs and pioneering medical research and education opportunities.
For further information about the Westmead Redevelopment, visit: http://www.westmeadproject.health.nsw.gov.au/
