Ballan’s new multimillion-dollar Primary Care Centre was officially opened last week.
Residents and community leaders came together last Monday to celebrate the official opening of the $3.6 million centre and inspect it with Victorian senator Michael Ronaldson.
The centre is an expansion of the existing GP Super Clinic.
Senator Ronaldson said it was a great honour to open the facility which, he said, was a tribute to years of hard work and dedication by volunteers, board members past and present, and staff of Ballan and District Health & Care.
“I look at this as one of those great Australian and country town success stories,” he said. “This is a fantastic community, which owns a great facility.”
Since its inception 50 years ago as the Ballan and District Soldiers Memorial Bush Nursing Hospital & Hostel Inc, trading now as Ballan District Health & Care, the organisation has worked closely with the community, responding to its health-care needs.
Senator Ronaldson said: “The one thing we’ve got that those who live in Melbourne, Sydney, Perth and Brisbane, etc, don’t is that innate understanding that if we don’t do it no one else is going to do it,” he said. “When the going got really tough, this community got together.”
The new centre has a hydro rehabilitation and therapy pool, gymnasium and additional consultation rooms for specialists. It also houses Ballan’s first commercial elevator.
Numbers are also growing, with 14 new staff joining the team in the past couple of weeks.
The centre was funded by the federal government’s health and hospitals fund.
Moorabool mayor Paul Tatchell also congratulated the community on the new facilities which, he said, were making the rest of Australia “very, very jealous”.
“It’s extraordinary that a community can go through 50 years of some very tough times to put together such a magnificent building and facility,” Cr Tatchell said. “I think it’s a credit to the local people, it’s a credit to local communities and to the power of volunteerism.
“And, of course, for the government to come along and recognise that this is a great asset to the town is the icing on the cake.”
