St Vincents Private Hospitals

Mater Hospital opens new palliative care and day surgery centre

The Mater has opened a new $42 million state-of-the-art palliative care facility and modernised day surgery centre, providing a full suite of birth to end-of-life patient services with the new Ritchie Family Centre for Supportive and Palliative Care meeting the North Shore community's holistic supportive and palliative care needs.

With 12 beds, it’s estimated around 235 palliative care patients will use the new Centre every year. The Centre, which features a garden and consulting suites, will also serve as a research and teaching facility, advancing palliative care practices, including the increasing provision of care-in-the-home.

The second floor of the new wing will house an expanded day surgery unit, including an additional endoscopy suite. The Duncan Family Day Surgery Centre will enhance patient flow and experience and allow the Hospital to support medical procedures that are increasingly offered as day surgery admissions. 

The development has been enabled by the vision and generous philanthropic support from the Friends of the Mater Foundation, which committed $18.5 million to the project. This extraordinary contribution was made possible not only by the very significant philanthropy of the Ritchie, Duncan, and Van Norton-Poche families, but also by the many other Friends of the Mater donors whose generosity enabled the provision of specialised equipment, furniture, and a collection of Aboriginal artworks. 

St Vincent’s CEO, Chris Blake, said the exciting new centre was all about strengthening the St Vincent’s Mater’s health services for people living north of the bridge.