The Sydney Adventist Hospital (SAH) will undertake a $A23 million capital works program that is necessary, says the hospital board, to enhance the hospital’s position as a provider of premium health care in the increasingly competitive environment of Sydney, New South Wales.

The first of three projects is establishing specialist suites to be leased to specialists on commercial terms. Another initiative is to reconfigure wards within the hospital tower block to increase the number of higher-income-generating private rooms. And in what may be a corporate first for the Adventist Church in the South Pacific, the hospital is to provide an on-site child-minding facility for staff. The initiative is in response to staff shortages, and will provide care for staff children at normal commercial rates.

The loan for the expansion was approved by the executive committee of the Seventh-day Adventist Church in the South Pacific at its May meeting.

Established in 1903, Sydney Adventist Hospital is the largest private hospital in New South Wales.  The 329-bed hospital has 2,000 employees and provides services for more than 24,000 in-patients and 120,000 out-patients each year.