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USC backs University Hospital announcement
The University of the Sunshine Coast has strongly supported State Health Minister Stephen Robertson’s announcement that a new hospital at Kawana will be called the Sunshine Coast University Hospital.
USC Vice-Chancellor Professor Paul Thomas AM said the Minister’s announcement indicated much more about the nature of the hospital than simply its name.
He said a university hospital would offer the local community a wider range of more complex services than ever before, would be equipped as a teaching hospital for medical, nursing and allied health students, and would encompass research facilities.
“The name sends a profoundly important message to the world about the kind of hospital this is to become,” he said.
“The benefits of this institution being a university hospital will be considerable, most obviously in relation to the high quality staff it will attract, and the range of opportunities that will exist for practitioners within the hospital.
“The residents of the Sunshine Coast will be the major beneficiaries of this world-class name because the hospital will attract larger pools of talented practitioners than any other name variant.”
Professor Thomas said USC and the University of Queensland would have close collaboration with teaching and research activities at the new hospital which is planned to open in 2014.
“USC will be concentrating on nursing and allied health while UQ will be involved with postgraduate medical training, as both universities have been doing at Nambour Hospital for some time,” he said.
Professor Thomas said USC would work closely with Queensland Health to attract large numbers of people into training programs in order to meet the new hospital’s staffing requirements in 2014.
“This is an exciting period of development for what must become a world-class facility.”
— Terry Walsh