General Manager for the St Vincent’s Private Community Hospital, Graham Clarke was pleased the facility was starting on the first operating list.

“The hospital having promised so much over many years is actually fully operational.” he said.

“The facility will be caring for the people of Griffith and doing surgery that they may have been able to receive at the Griffith Base Hospital but more than likely would have had to travel to Wagga to receive.”

An example of this is orthopaedic surgery, which is for the first time now available for the people of Griffith.

“This is a major service that we are providing that was not available in the local area before now,” he said.

“To receive orthopaedic surgery in the past you would have to travel to Wagga, Albury or Sydney.

“We will be doing a fairly low level of surgery to begin with such as arthroscopy and other minor surgery.

“As the surgeons become more comfortable with the hospital and get their arrangements in place they will start to increase the level of surgery.

“Hopefully towards the middle of next year we will be doing quite large orthopaedic surgery such as knee and hip replacements.”

So far the feedback the hospital has received from the community has been really positive according to the general manager.

“We had the open days about a month ago and the response that we got was amazing,” he said.

“There was a constant stream of people coming in during those four hours.

“They have all been really happy with the environment of the hospital and the level of equipment that we have access to.”

Mr Clarke said the main thing he is focused on is making sure the hospital can cut down on patients’ travelling.

“We hope to offer a lot of the surgery for private patients which they currently cannot get in Griffith,” he said.

“We work well with the base hospital now and want to improve it further moving forward to help Griffith.”