The new central building at Canberra Hospital is set to become fully operational in the coming weeks with authorities planning to move more than 160 patients in a single day.
Services in the new critical services building at the hospital will start on Saturday, August 17, with health officials planning to move the bulk of services on the one day.
The critical services building will include some of the hospitals key services including the emergency department, the intensive care unit and operating theatres.
The new emergency department will open from 7.30am on the day. Any patients remaining in the old department will continue to be treated there or they will be discharged or admitted to the hospital if needed.
Patients and staff in the intensive care unit will be gradually moved across the day to the new building, along with other medical and surgical inpatient units.
Emergency surgeries will start in the new building from 7.30am on August 17, and elective surgeries will begin in the building from Monday, August 19.
The hospital's helipad will also be located on top of the new building and it will also become operational from 7.30am.
Over the next two weeks there will be 3000 pieces of equipment moved to the new building.
Health Minister Rachel Stephen-Smith said more than 4000 staff had been oriented in the new building. She said simulations had taken place and there were a range of contingency plans in place in case anything goes wrong.
"It will be a very big effort over the next couple of weeks to move everybody in and to get all the services settled into this new facility," she said.
"There's been a lot of simulation work to under exactly what, if there is something that happens on a day, how everybody works together to address that.
"We will also be putting out some messages to the wider community in the lead up to the opening of the new emergency department to let people know that it is moving."
There was a ribbon cutting ceremony at the building with Chief Minister Andrew Barr on Tuesday morning.
"With a bigger emergency department, an expanded intensive care unit, more operating theatres and extra treatment spaces, this major expansion to the Canberra Hospital will enhance our acute care services for Canberrans and those who live in the surrounding NSW region," he said.
The Canberra Hospital expansion was first promised by the government ahead of the 2016 election and Labor's 10-year health plan initially planned for it to be open in 2022.
The expansion was initially dubbed SPIRE but the government ditched this name before the 2020 election and it was instead referred to as the Canberra Hospital expansion.
The project was delayed after the government spent a lot of time trying to determine the best site for the expansion on the Canberra Hospital campus.
"That did take some time... once this site was chosen in December 2018 we have now met the timeline that we established at that time," Ms Stephen-Smith said.
Labor first promised a new hospital at the 2012 election but it was put on hold in 2013 for budget reasons.
Opposition Leader Elizabeth Lee said the project had been delivered too late and pointed to the thousands of people who have been overdue for elective surgeries.
"This is necessary and very, very critical infrastructure that Canberrans need and deserve and it has been delivered too late," she said.
"It gives very, very little comfort to those Canberrans who have really paid the price while this government played around with funding the tram and ripping hundreds of millions of dollars out of planned health infrastructure."
