Medical Centre in Making

WORK has started on a new Kalamunda Primary Care Centre next to the Kalamunda Hospital site.

Two weeks ago, the land for the centre was cleared and construction should start in three months.

The centre is being created by Mead Medical and has been privately funded through Medfin Finance after the project was rejected for Federal funding.

Mead Medical is the oldest established medical group in the Kalamunda Shire and this new centre will take it from the 15 general practitioners on staff to about 20 – roughly 12 full-time equivalents.

Also working as a training centre for University of WA and Notre Dame medical students, the centre will have a pharmacy, pathology and meeting room for both staff and community purposes.

The Mead Medical group has been working towards the new Kalamunda centre for about seven years.

Practice doctor Warren Thyer said the new centre would see the closure of the smaller Mead Street site and work in conjunction with the Forrestfield centre, which would remain open.

He said it would also complement existing services in the area by other providers, including Kalamunda Hospital.

Expected to be completed by April 2012, it is hoped the centre will also ease the growing waiting lists for patients to see doctors, according to practice doctor Sean Stevens.

Medical centre staff and doctors met with Member for Kalamunda John Day MLA and site manager Alvin Harrison last Friday morning to celebrate the start of the works.

Mr Day said he was excited to see site works start after years of helping Mead Medical where he could.

“I think the community here will be very happy to see this development,” he said.