Acute Care

The Acute Care Ward caters for a wide variety of clients, including general medicine, surgical, maternity and paediatric clients in an ambient and friendly environment. The ward also has special facilities for palliative care clients as well as a special care unit for clients requiring close observation or having high dependence needs.

Maternity Services

As part of the Acute Care Ward, our maternity services accommodate on average 50 births per year. In conjunction with this, our Community Midwifery Program includes Antenatal Classes and Midwifery Booking in Procedures.
We also provide Domiciliary Home Visiting within the Cohuna Shire and liaise closely with the Maternal and Child Health Nurses. We have staff who provide a 24-hour telephone support service for all our midwifery clients post discharge.

Surgical Services

We have one operating theatre which provides facilities for:

The surgical specialties provided by CDH include:

All surgeons work in close liaison with local medical clinics, GP anaesthetists and the nursing staff ensuring that the peri-operative phase of a patient’s care is coordinated and delivered to a consistently high standard.

Haemodialysis

The Unit is open on a Monday, Wednesday and Friday year round and is staffed by specialist Division 1 Registered Nurses. Due to their health needs, clients are required to attend the unit these three days a week for approximately four hours per visit.
All our clients are assessed frequently by staff with regular communication between local general practitioners and their nephrologists.
If you are planning a holiday in Cohuna or the surrounding area and require this service, please contact us as early as possible to allow us to accommodate for this, particularly during the summer peak holiday season.

Accident & Emergency

The Cohuna Accident and Emergency Department provides emergency care to Cohuna and the surrounding area twenty-four hour per day, seven days per week.
The department is staffed by nurses from the ward with medical services provided by visiting GP’s on a private basis. Clients using the Emergency Department are assessed by nursing staff and are triaged according to the severity of their presenting problem with the most urgent cases always attended to first.

Infection Control

Cohuna District Hospital has five priority areas on which to focus our infection control work as identified in the Victorian Infection Control Strategy.

1. Management Commitment, Leadership and Accountability

This is demonstrated through our strategic plan, Infection Control Multidisciplinary Committee, and policy and procedure manual that reflects current best practice.

2. Monitoring of Infection Control and Reducing Infection Rates

Cohuna has participated in the pilot phase of the introduction of VICNISS for type 2 surveillance, for hospitals with less than 100 beds. We have collected data on the following areas:

3. Prevention of Adverse Events

A new waterless hand hygiene product has been introduced into all wards and departments to ensure compliance with hand hygiene. Consumer information brochures have been developed to assist in education of staff and visitors with regard to hand hygiene.

4. Surveillance

Monthly cleaning audits are conducted internally to ensure the hospital is maintained in an acceptable level. This process is then validated by an audit that is conducted by an external person and this data is reported to the Department of Human Services. The average internal cleaning audit score is well above the Acceptable Quality Level of 80%.

5. Staff Health and Education

CDH is committed to providing ongoing education and staff health, including provision of vaccinations and management of occupational exposures as recommended by the National Health & Medical Research Council.