Page 1280 - Week 04 - Thursday, 11 May 2023
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architectural work as part of this analysis showed a new hospital could be built on the existing campus without a need to interrupt the delivery of any public hospital services during construction.
In 2020, the ACT government committed to building a new north side hospital. In the 2021-22 budget an investment of more than $13.5 million was provided to establish a north side hospital project team to undertake a scope and early design of the new north side hospital, and to investigate whether the best location for the hospital was at the existing Bruce campus or at a greenfield location in Canberra’s north.
A new north side hospital will be the largest single health infrastructure investment in the history of the territory and is expected to cost more than a billion dollars. This is, of course, in addition to more than $640 million invested in the Canberra Hospital expansion and the ongoing work on the Canberra Hospital master plan.
The ACT government is committed to commencing construction of the new north side hospital by mid-decade, and funding will be allocated in the 2023-24 budget to progress the new hospital through to detailed design, as well as provisioning for construction.
Prior to making this significant investment, there have been two key considerations for the ACT government—owning the land on which the hospital is built, and who would be the operator of the new, larger, north side hospital. As members are aware, the north side public general hospital is currently operated by Calvary Health Care ACT.
The ACT government plans to build a new north side hospital on the current Calvary Public Hospital site in Bruce. This is the site where Canberrans have been going for public hospital services for more than 40 years and where there is a private hospital and other health services, as well as an ACT government-owned multistorey car park. From the planning we have done to date, we also know that we can build a new hospital without having to interrupt the delivery of services—just as we are delivering the new Canberra Hospital expansion without reducing clinical services across the functioning hospital campus.
Planning for the hospital over the coming years will be supported and informed by ongoing engagement with the community, clinicians and key stakeholders, ensuring that it meets Canberra’s future healthcare needs with no disruption to existing services.
This will be a bigger, state-of-the-art hospital that will be a great environment for patients, carers, staff, volunteers and visitors. Community consultation undertaken last year on the new hospital showed that people are interested in having access to quality services on a campus that is welcoming, easy to navigate and accessible. This hospital will be all those things and will serve the needs of our growing population on the north side.
On the question of operator, the government has decided that the new north side hospital will be operated by Canberra Health Services, delivering a more efficient and effective health system for Canberrans. It will enable the new hospital to slot into a genuinely integrated public hospital network across the ACT—as a general hospital working alongside the tertiary hospital in Garran and the subacute rehabilitation hospital at the University of Canberra.
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