News / More accommodation at new Aberdeen maternity hospital
THE NUMBER of rooms available to islanders travelling to Aberdeen for maternity services will nearly double when two new healthcare facilities are opened in the city in 2021.
Senior service project manager Gail Thomson said the needs of island areas like Shetland have given high priority as NHS Grampian prepares to build the new Baird Family Hospital and ANCHOR Centre at Foresterhill.
The Baird Family Hospital will provide a new home for maternity and gynaecology services in Aberdeen, as well as breast screening and surgery.
The ANCHOR Centre will provide out-patient and day-patient services for people with cancer and for patients with blood disorders.
Thomson and service project manager Louise-Anne Budge have been in Shetland this week to give the public and NHS staff more details about the £163.7 million plans.
The current self-catering ‘islands’ accommodation at Aberdeen Maternity Hospital for patients and family members only has nine rooms which have shared bathroom facilities.
But the Baird Family Hospital will host 16 rooms, all of which will be private and will have en-suite facilities.
They will consist of four single rooms, 11 double rooms and a family room.
Thomson said they will be “more family friendly”, with a fold-out bed available in each room for partners.
The accommodation, which officials hope will be available to be pre-booked rather than designated through the current first-come first-served system, will remain free of charge.
The rooms at the maternity hospital are used by mothers, often joined by their partners and children, while preparing to give birth in Aberdeen.
The rooms are also used by parents with babies in the hospital’s neonatal unit.
Pregnant women are often sent to the mainland in the later stages of pregnancy for a variety of reasons, including if there is any concern about possible complications during labour.
The site for the two new facilities, meanwhile, will start being prepared in the coming months, with the ground due to be broken in next spring.
The ANCHOR Centre is set to be open in August 2021 before the Baird facility launches in November that year, with the existing maternity hospital due to be demolished in 2022.
There will be better capabilities for video conferencing in the two facilities, as well as WiFi connections for patients and families.
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