Murrumburrah-Harden Hospital has been identified as one of 13 priority sites in the state and 1 of 5 identified sites in the Murrumbidgee Local Health District for an MPS.
The Murrumburrah-Harden Health Service has 13 acute care beds and a 2 bed emergency department that provides acute and community health services to the local shire including child and family worker, community health nursing and other out reach services.
Multi Purpose Services (MPS) are integrated health and aged care services that provide flexible and sustainable service options for small rural and remote communities.
MPS’s have been under construction in NSW since 1993 and are supported by the State and Commonwealth Governments. There are currently 65 of them in the state and a total of 220 hospitals.
The process of establishing an MPS requires intensive community consultation to provide a model that meets the local requirements of residents. If approved an MPS can take several years to reach the construction phase.
In the current state budget, state wide there is an amount of $29 million set aside for the next 4 to 5 years of planning.
The MPS model is often suitable for small rural communities where there is an ageing population, a lack of or limited nursing home and hostel accomodation and difficulty in sustaining stand alone health, community and aged care services.