Smoking Ceremony a success at Townsville Hospital

As the Endoscopy units have now been wrapped up by Paynters, Qld Health held a smoking ceremony on site, an ancient custom among some Aboriginal Australians that involves smoldering various native plants to produce smoke which they believe has cleansing properties and the ability to ward off bad spirits.

The Townsville hospital treats a large portion of the Aboriginal and Torres Strait community and conducting ceremonies like this gives comfort to those entering the facility.

The project has seen the delivery of a state-of-the-art Endoscopy unit with 4x procedure rooms, dedicated decontamination facility, admission area, recovery area, as well as various other support facilities.

The new unit will enhance the THHS’s gastroenterology department and provide redundancy around capacity of treatment and future community growth.

A key component of the facility has been the delivery of an industry leading decontamination function. This area allows the unit to clean and process various endoscopes used. A key focus in delivering this function has been compliance with the stringent new AS4187 guidelines. This updated standard provides the parameters for delivery and reprocessing of reusable medical devices in health service organisations.

The next 5 weeks will see the completion of the subsequent separable portion with the delivery of a new Renal Dialysis 15 bed unit. Once this has been handed over, focus will move to refurbishing the existing Renal unit.

Pictured left at the smoking ceremony are, Cultural Practice Coordinator Trevor Prior, Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander Liaison Officer Mick Illin and Executive Director Indigenous Health Dallas Leon.