Townsville Hospital

The Townsville Hospital is the main tertiary care hospital and only public hospital of the Cities of Townsville and Thuringowa, Queensland, and one of many Queensland state run public hospitals. The current hospital was completed in October 2001, and is located in the suburb of Douglas. Townsville Hospital also serves patients from the entire North Queensland region, with patients as far as Mount Isa and Cape York, being airlifted or transported to the Hospital on a daily basis. The main referral hospitals, Royal Brisbane Hospital and Royal Women's Hospital, are in Herston, Brisbane (at 1375 kilometers).

The current CEO is Mr. Ken Whelan. During the period 2004/2005, the hospital admitted 41,504 patients, and was visited 416,081 times. The current capacity is at 460 beds. It is affiliated to the University of Queensland, James Cook University, and the Rural Health Training Unit.

The hospital is also a major interchange for the city's Public Transportation company Sunbus.

History
The new hospital started construction in late-1998 and replaced the old Townsville General Hospital that was located in North Ward. The Old Hospital could not expand any further as it had already outgrown its location, and was sometimes, reaching absolute capacity. Though the new hospital is much larger, many patients are often cut short of their time in the hospital due to the hospital reaching capacity and due to an ever increasing waiting list.

Another reason for a new hospital was a matter of suburban centralisation for the entire urban centre.

Services

 * Internal Medicine
 * Infectious Diseases service
 * Rheumatology Clinic
 * Cardiology, including interventional cardiac catheterisation suite and primary angioplasty; cardiac electrophysiology and pacing; heart failure service
 * General surgery service
 * Orthopedic and Trauma surgery
 * Cardiothoracic Surgery
 * Neurosurgery
 * Intensive Care
 * Hyperbaric medicine
 * Palliative care
 * Oncology Service (radiation and medical)
 * Obstetrics and gynaecology service
 * Paediatric care
 * Plastic surgery
 * Psychiatric Department
 * Gastroenterology service
 * Renal and dialysis service
 * Urology
 * Dermatology
 * Ophthalmology
 * Vascular surgery service