Page 734 - Week 03 - Thursday, 2 April 2020

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Canberra Hospital precinct—petitions 29-19 and 32-19

By Ms Stephen-Smith, Minister for Health, dated 24 February 2020, in response to petitions lodged by Mrs Dunne on 28 November 2019 concerning traffic conditions in the Canberra Hospital precinct.

The response read as follows:

Dear Mr Duncan

Thank you for your letter of 28 November 2019 regarding petition numbers
29-19 and 32-19 lodged by Mrs Vicki Dunne MLA regarding the SPIRE Project.

The SPIRE Project is delivering a state-of-the-art new emergency, surgical and critical care facility to the Canberra Hospital. This transformational project will future-proof Canberra’s main hospital facility by meeting the growing demand for healthcare, streamlining services and offering first-class clinical training opportunities, enabling us to provide the best care for Canberrans for generations to come.

The location of the SPIRE Project was based on consultation and technical work to understand the best location for this new development. This included consultation with clinicians, consideration of the space available on campus, the requirement for efficient linkages to other hospital services and the ability to keep all clinical services operational during construction – the latter being a core requirement of the project.

To date, the SPIRE Project has held numerous consultations with community stakeholders to inform service and infrastructure planning on the Canberra Hospital campus, including the scope of the SPIRE Project. These included early meetings with the Garran Primary School and Woden Valley Community Council prior to Government’s funding of the project in the 2019-20 Budget. Since taking responsibility for the project on 1 July 2019, Major Projects Canberra (MPC) has undertaken further community meetings to provide project planning updates and gain an understanding of the local community’s specific interests, concerns and aspirations associated with the SPIRE Project. This included meetings with the Garran Primary School and the Garran Residents’ Association, a community consultation session hosted at Garran Primary School and a presentation at the Woden Valley Community Council.

In 2020, the SPIRE Project team is building on these initial consultations to ensure the community is involved in the design and delivery phases of the project. A Local Community Reference Group, established in February 2020, will work with the SPIRE Project team (and later in 2020 the main works contractor) to ensure the hospital’s near neighbours are consulted on the design and construction of the project.

This group will provide a formal mechanism for the community to have their voice heard and will, in turn, ensure the community is kept informed of decisions reached through this ongoing collaboration.

Several critical aspects of the SPIRE Project’s design and delivery will be the focus of the Local Community Reference Group during 2020, including parking


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