KILMORE and District Hospital will soon be safer for patients, staff and the entire community with fundlng to go towards vital upgrades to the hospitals security systems. Nearly $500,000 from the Regional Health Infrastructure Fund will be used to upgrade closed circuit television, install new signage and upgrade IT technology. This investment will mean safer care for patients and a safer workplace for staff with enhanced CCTV cameras to deter inappropriate behaviour. The CCTV and security systems will all be connected to the hospitals different facilities including Caladenia Nursing Home and Dianella Hostel through a single monitoring system. Kilmore and District Hospital CEO Sue Race said the funding is amazing and desperately needed. Being a rural hospital, we have no on-site security presence. The more high-quality Infrastructure we have to support that security presence is invaluable, she said. For me, its about staff safely and the safely of our patients. We just want to make sure our staff and community are as safe as possible when they visit our hospital and have good care, but in an environment that is as safe as possible. Member for Northem Victoria Jaclyn Symes made the announcement yesterday (October 22) while visiting the hospital with Labor candidate for Euroa Fionna Deppeler-Morton to inspect maternal and neonatal upgrades which were funded in a previous round. Ms Symes said the funding is important to support all the staff and patients of the Kilmore and District Hospital. Its so important to have equipment that really helps out our hard working nurses, midwives and all the staff here, she said. Todays announcement is certainly about patient safely but its going to be great for the staff in terms of morale, the confidence to do their job and to just be able to focus on what they do best and thats keep our community healthy. Ms Race said due to the size of the project, she hopes it will be delivered In 2019. Its quite a big project so we would look at hopefully having it in place sometime next year, probably second half of next year by the time we get it all worked out, she said.