The Canberra Hospital and its campuses

As most of you know, yesterday I took a friend and his wife over to Canberra for his consultation with a specialist. All was not good for them and we experienced a considerable time delay before, during and after the consultation, however, while I was there I decided to take a walk and get some photographs of The Canberra Hospital and its various campuses.

Firstly a map of the site:

The National Capital Private Hospital

AKA - "NatCap"

This is owned by various medical specialists and is a wholly privately run hospital located within The Canberra Hospital precincts.

The tower block, the main section of The Canberra Hospital public campus.

The tower in the front is the externally located multiple lift shafts and stairwell.

When I was the Safety Officer for this hospital we discovered that the ACT Fire Brigade had no ladder appliance that could reach above the fourth floor of this ten story building and with the lifts shut down and if/when the stairwell became full of smoke all the people on the upper floors (Level 8 was the children's ward and Level 9 the operating Theatres!) were trapped with no way to get out. We examined several emergency plans and eventually we settled on these apparatus that you see attached to the tower - they are like 'bosun's chairs' and people can be slung in them and lowered to the ground (assuming that the tower remained fire-proof!)

The Australian National University School of Medicine (below) now has a teaching faculty on The Canberra Hospital Campus

 
This is supported by a new and up-graded library building.

 
The ACT Government Pathology Department is located on the Canberra Hospital site and in addition to handling much of the public pathology for the hospital it is also the forensic pathology laboratory for the ACT.

 
The all-weather footbridge in the foreground connects NatCap with the public hospital and immediately behind the Pathology building is the new Maternity Hospital (its attached to the pathology building).
 
The main entrance, public cafeteria and Lecture theatres join between the tower block and the ramp ward - home to Gastroenterology, Rehabilitation and a small psychiatric unit.
 

 
There is also a 'stand alone' clinical medicine consulting centre and a 'stand alone' secure Mental Health Building at the far end of the hospital grounds, however, I was not going to walk up that far.
 
The staff residences are now available to all staff, whereas originally they were the "Nurses Home". I won't tell any tales here about the latter but I found it somewhat prophetic that one wing of the old Nurses Home is now the home of the Canberra Sexual Health Centre. Some may argue whether this is a change! LOL!