A new Victorian education centre will provide training to 160 students spanning nursing, physiotherapy, psychology, occupational therapy, dietetics, speech pathology, social work and medicine each year.
The multidisciplinary training centre at Melbourne’s Epworth Camberwell is part of a $43 million redevelopment of the site, which includes rehabilitation services along with Epworth Clinic - a comprehensive mental health service.
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The innovative education centre, which received $1.32 million in federal government funding, includes a lecture theatre, six tutorial and therapy rooms, three training rooms within consulting suites, and six consulting rooms.
Epworth’s rehabilitation services feature clinical management of inpatients and outpatients requiring rehabilitation following acquired brain injury, multi-trauma, orthopaedic surgery, hip and knee joint replacement, neurological events such as stroke, cardiac events and pain management issues.
It also offers sleep studies, falls prevention, a Parkinson’s disease program and a breast cancer rehabilitation program.
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In opening the centre, Health Minister Peter Dutton said the facility was one of 35 projects to provide clinical teaching and training across Australia to share in funding totalling $90 million.
“An integral part of providing a strong foundation for the health system into the future is to provide new infrastructure funding to build the facilities to train the doctors, nurses, physios and other health professionals of tomorrow,” he said in a statement.
The redevelopment includes 72 new beds, including 63 beds for psychiatry services, and nine rehabilitation beds, comprising six beds for sleep studies, taking the total number of beds to 153 across rehabilitation, sleep studies and mental health.
Epworth Clinic, which opened last year, provides inpatient and day patient care for people with depression, bipolar affective disorder,
anxiety disorders, schizophrenia, borderline personality disorder and a range of other mental health conditions.
“Our teams consist of consultant psychiatrists working with highly-experienced
mental health nurses and
allied health staff to create a program tailored to individual patients in hospital and after discharge,” Epworth HealthCare Group CEO Alan Kinkade said.
“Furthermore, it is unique in that it is integrated with one of the best rehabilitation services in the country to make available exercise, dietary and healthy living activities.”