A new ward at Ballarat Hospital promised to provide extra beds to help deal with the surge in winter patient numbers is not yet open and there is no date set for its opening.
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In an announcement to staff in April, Ballarat Health Service's executive director of acute operations Ben Kelly announced ward 3 South would open for patient admissions.
Two months later the doors are not yet open.
"Capital project planning is underway for the ward and we're recruiting for staff to run it," a hospital spokeswoman said.
It is not known how many new jobs will be created with the opening of the new ward.
Winter is traditionally a crunch-time for hospital admissions as influenza, pneumonia and other winter illnesses drive visits to the emergency department, with Ballarat in the grips of a particularly vigorous start to the flu season with 162 laboratory-confirmed cases of influenza compared to 20 for the same period last year.
The winter surge has hit hard and early, with emergency department presentations during May up almost seven per cent compared to the same time last year.
An average of 176 people a day sought treatment in the ED, with some days peaking at more than 200 patients with health complaints.
The new ward 3 South is proposed to be a 20-bed general medicine ward that will take emergency admissions, medical and surgical patients. The extra beds will help reduce so-called "bed block" when emergency patients requiring hospital admission cannot be moved from ED because there are no available beds.
Of the 15,465 patients admitted to Ballarat Base Hospital from the emergency department during 2017-18, only a third were found a bed on a ward within four hours compared to a 40 per cent average for hospitals of a similar size across Victoria.
It comes as the number of people presenting to the BHS emergency department continues to boom. During 2017-18 the emergency department treated almost 59,000 patients, up from 51,413 in 2014-15.
When ward 3 South does open, ward 3 North will be reduced from 28 to 24 beds, and ward 2GP will have fewer beds available on weekends.
At the time of the initial announcement, Mr Kelly said the new ward would offer "extra bed capacity, significantly improving our capability to meet demand pressures from our emergency department and enhance the placement of medical and surgical patients to our wards".
"We are currently working through options with staff about expanding our ward-based services to increase our capacity to deliver services to our community," Mr Kelly said at the time.
Plans are underway for BHS to undergo a $461.6 million upgrade including a new ED and at least 100 extra beds.
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