Darling Downs Health welcomes State Budget announcements

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Darling Downs Health has welcomed the funding commitments in this week’s State Budget which will allow the Darling Downs Health Service to continue to provide quality care to residents well into the future.

Chief Executive of Darling Downs Health, Annette Scott PSM said the announcements this week were good news for the Health Service.

“This coming financial year $50 million in capital expenditure has been allocated to works on the New Toowoomba Hospital, $17 million in capital expenditure for the Millmerran Multi-Purpose Health Service and $9.4 million in capital expenditure for the Tara Hospital.

“Early works are continuing to progress on the New Toowoomba Hospital project, and alongside the projects in Millmerran and Tara, it will provide the community access to state-of-the-art healthcare facilities,”

Chief Executive of Darling Downs Health, Annette Scott PSM

Also announced in the State Budget was $70.3 million over four years to assist regional patients through the existing Patient Travel Subsidy Scheme.

“Throughout last year our Patient Travel Subsidy team processed up to 7,000 claims for patients across the Darling Downs each month.” .

Darling Downs Health utilises emerging technology and techniques to deliver quality care to patients closer to home, including virtual fracture clinics and teleoncology services, and the budget announcement of expanded virtual clinical services will continue to provide more convenient treatment options for the community.

"We're particularly excited about the ongoing expansion of virtual hospital clinical services. We've seen firsthand the positive impact virtual care has on our patients through our Hospital In The Home program, our teleoncology service, and other programs that have seen unwell children treated in a virtual environment. These programs have improved the experience and wellbeing of patients across our region and I look forward to seeing these services and more like them continue to expand.”

In 2022 Darling Downs Health provided hundreds of thousands of instances of care to the community, including over 355,000 outpatient appointments, more than 11,000 elective surgeries and 32,958 dental treatments.