General News
7 November, 2025
The Cottage opens as Beaufort’s newest Health Service Hub
BEAUFORT and Skipton Health Service celebrated the official opening of The Cottage this week, a long-anticipated project that has transformed a long-held property into a modern workspace for the community health teams. Purchased by the Beaufort and Skipton Health Service Foundation in 2011, the building had sat in reserve for more than a decade before undergoing a full $415,000 restoration, made possible by a $250,000 donation from the Beaufort Skipton Foundation.
Health Service CEO Meryn Pease officially opened the building and expressed her gratitude to the foundation for their ongoing support.
“I just want to say a sincere appreciation to the foundation for your ongoing commitment and dedication to the health service,” she said.
Ms Pease explained that the refurbishment will make a huge difference.
“It enables the supported home team, who are Commonwealth in-home care providers, as well as our finance team, administration, health promotion and our residential aged care coordinator, to actually have a purpose-built space in which to work.”
With the dwindling space within the Beaufort campus, the build has become a much-needed asset.
“For the health service, we’re growing, we’re expanding our services,” she said.
“We have over 90 home care package clients, and that means growing the number of staff we need to do the case management. We just didn't have the accommodation in the existing buildings. So to have the foundation backing in support to refurbish this building means that we've got an asset that will have a long life for the health service and the community, but also a space that is quite fresh for our staff to work in as well.”
Foundation Chairman Nigel Ponder said it was rewarding to see the project come to fruition.
“It’s been great for the foundation to be able to provide funding for this, and the amount of work that Meryn and the team have done to get this up and going I think is absolutely fantastic,” he said.
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