The Cairns South Health Facility (CSHF) has been developed as a multi-purpose facility to operate in both ordinary use as a community health facility and extraordinary use as an alternative service site for emergency care in disaster events. A key objective of the Far North Queensland facility is for all functional areas to be able to be utilised through-out the year for a community health and ambulatory care operations, it may not be fully utilised during disaster events.
This new dual-purpose facility will improve regional capability for the health service in times of disaster, enabling the delivery of interim emergency care and with the ability to evacuate casualties through an onsite helipad. The Category 5 cyclone-rated facility will also act as a back-up hospital in the event of disasters, being able to operate off-grid for up to 48 hours, with the provision of extra water storage.
The facility has been designed with flexibility to cater for a range of services and be adaptable to the changing needs of the health service. Whilst the focus of the building’s design has been to provide an interim emergency department, its day-to-day use as will be as a community health care centre.