More than 15,000 children a year will be able to receive medical treatment in a new dedicated paediatric emergency department at Canberra Hospital, which received a $5 million commitment in the federal budget.
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The money, included in this week's federal budget, will fund the construction of a dedicated service for children within the emergency department of Canberra Hospital.
Federal Health Minister Peter Dutton said the Commonwealth would provide the funding this financial year to enable the ACT government to refurbish an area next to the existing ED at Canberra Hospital to create more suitable and family friendly waiting, triage and treatment areas for children.
"It will ensure sick children are treated and discharged, or admitted to a hospital ward, as quickly as possible," he said.
"The introduction of paediatric streaming in ED will provide early identification of paediatric patients who are waiting for care and the quick transfer of those patients to the appropriate services in the new Centenary Hospital for Women and Children. These are the first steps towards establishing a genuine paediatric stream."
Canberra Hospital ED clinical director Michael Hall said the dedicated paediatric emergency department would allow young patients to be treated in a more child-friendly environment and away from adult patients.
"In its absolute simplest terms, we're moving the care of paediatrics from a non-kid friendly area within the ED to a dedicated kid-friendly area on the edge of the ED," he said.
"We believe the emergency department provides excellent care for children, but we are happy to accept and we believe we're providing it in a not very child friendly environment so we're hoping to translate the care we currently provide in to a child-friendly environment.
"Effectively you'll have a 'turn left for adults and a turn right for kids' system and from then, they'll be separated."
Dr Hall said the only ED area that would still be shared by adults and children would be the resuscitation room "because that's a highly specialised facility".
"Kids will have a separate experience (from adults) so there'll be a separate waiting room, a separate triage desk, a separate clinical area, separate medical and nursing staff on each shift," he said.
Dr Hall said the paediatric emergency department would be designed in a way that resources could be shared with the adult ED but allowing children and adults to have a "seperate" experience.
He said the final design was yet to be completed.
"The waiting room itself should be a much nicer environment, with a large play area, set up in terms of colours, in terms of resources to be paediatric friendly. It has some advantages in terms of infection control because we'll have rooms between the kids so you're less likely to share bugs from one child to the next," he said.
Dr Hall said about 17,000 children were treated at Canberra Hospital ED a year.
He said it was hoped the children's emergency department would have six single rooms and a consult room opening back into the waiting room.
"Effectively it gives us seven treatment bays for kids. Currently we have six," he said.
"The design is such that the waiting room is integrated into the function of the area so you can probably be managing 10 kids at once without difficulty."
Construction on the project is expected to begin in November and it is estimated it will be completed by September next year.
Mr Dutton said the federal funding would help improve the services provided to children and their families within the ACT as well as those in the south-east of New South Wales.
Last June the ACT government announced in its budget it would spend $5 million in 2013-14 to begin work on a separate paediatric emergency area, with the federal government agreeing to fund the capital works and reimburse the full $5 million in 2014-15.
