The Australian Nursing and Midwifery Federation (Victorian Branch) has purchased 240-246 Victoria Street, North Melbourne to further support regional members’ access to its metropolitan education programs.
ANMF (Vic Branch) will seek to develop the iconic Central Club Hotel site to provide affordable accommodation to assist more regional members to access education and conferences held at its new headquarters at 535 Elizabeth Street. The rear of the new ANMF building faces the hotel site’s O’Connell Street frontage.
The recent move to its new building, in addition to significant staff increases, is part of ANMF’s strategic plan to build on existing services for its growing membership of almost 80,000 members who are nurses, midwives and personal care workers.
About one third of ANMF members live and work in regional and rural Victoria. Each year hundreds of regional and rural members travel to Melbourne for ANMF conferences and training events and the ANMF Education Centre’s clinical and professional courses and seminars.
The new ANMF headquarters includes contemporary education facilities including two eight-bed nursing simulation laboratories and a registered training organisation (RTO 22609). This is in addition to the 410-seat Carson Conference Centre, a specialised library, student study hub and seminar and workshop spaces.
ANMF (Vic Branch) Secretary Lisa Fitzpatrick said: ‘We have some of Melbourne’s best nursing and midwifery education facilities and an ambitious plan to expand our program to address clinical gaps identified in the professional development offered by other organisations. We want to make sure our facilities are accessible to regional ANMF members.’
‘ANMF (Vic Branch) has been a local resident since 1993 and holds great affection for the Elizabeth Street boulevard and the Queen Victoria Market quarter. We’ve shown we can develop buildings for the future with respect for the local area and its heritage and we will seek to design a building that continues that respect. ‘Our contemporary accommodation for regional members will be a development that is sympathetic to the history of North Melbourne and the iconic Central Club Hotel,’ she said.
