Calvary Launceston General Manager, Dr Zoe Bishop, said the investment in equipment was the first step in uplifting services and assets across St Luke’s and St Vincent’s Hospitals to meet the needs of the community, as well as support the demands of contemporary healthcare.

The largest singular investment will enhance our surgical services offering, with $417,000 to purchase six new anaesthetic machines in the operating theatres at both hospitals. These will replace some older machines to deliver anaesthetic gases, monitor vital signs and, where necessary, breathe for a patient during surgery.

Meanwhile, the Calvary Clinic at St Luke’s, which is the only private mental health in-patient service in northern Tasmania, is getting a mini-facelift with new patient beds and bedside tables, as well as a new lounge suite for the communal area.

To support our nurses, who deliver care to a variety of patients with diverse needs, we are bringing on line some new patient beds. These include features with built-in pressure-care functions, and wider mattresses to accommodate bariatric patients. Sixteen beds with built-in weighing capacity and bed alarms will improve patient comfort and help manage risk, as will a range of new patient chairs and recliners.

Our hospitality service is also benefitting, with new food service trollies to make meal delivery more efficient.

Calvary St Vincent’s staff learning and development centre will also receive an upgrade of its audio-visual equipment.

“We are currently reviewing how to best modernise the infrastructure of our two Launceston hospitals to ensure we support the delivery of high quality and efficient care well into the future, but we recognise that we need to deliver these other upgrades now to support our staff and better serve our patients,” Dr Bishop said.

“Calvary has proudly delivered healthcare to the Tasmanian community for more than 80 years. We are part of the fabric of this community. Our people live here and work here, and Calvary is committed to remaining a leading private healthcare provider right here in Launceston.

“We provide hospital, aged care and home care services for the Northern Tasmanian community and it is business as usual while we continue to seek opportunities to contemporise our care and create a workplace that people choose for their healthcare career,” Dr Bishop said.