Wimmera centre gets to work
Wimmera Cancer Centre in Horsham is officially operational, with doors opening to its first patients last week.
The occasion represented a profound milestone for a project people across the Wimmera, Mallee and beyond had embraced.
Wimmera Health Care Group team members had been busily moving to the centre in the previous week to ensure they could start working with patients as planned by January 23.
Health group acting chief executive Mark Knights said chemotherapy patients were the first to begin treatment at the new centre and the expectation was that dialysis patients would start treatment there in early February.
“There was a real buzz at the new centre on the Wednesday morning,” he said.
“Team members from a range of departments have been busily working to be ready to meet this planned date we had set, and they did a great job.
“Professor George Kannourakis, one of our oncologists, set up his office at the new centre on Wednesday morning and his first consult was with Audrey and John Klemm at 8.30am.
“To be in the transition phase over to the new Wimmera Cancer Centre is exciting for everyone involved and we are very grateful to already be at this stage just three and a half years after starting the campaign to get this facility built.”
Mr Knights said plans were to open Wimmera Cancer Centre to the public at community open days on February 16 and 17. The centre will open from 10am to 1pm.
The Wimmera Cancer Centre represents one of the largest communitydriven projects in the contemporary history of Horsham and region.
It attracted, and continues to attract, significant philanthropic and business backing as well as community support from a broad range of Wimmera groups, organisations and individuals.
ACE Radio Broadcasters, through The Weekly Advertiser and radio stations 3WM and MIXX FM and the Geoff and Helen Handbury Foundation, have strongly supported the multimillion-dollar project since its inception.