The ACT Government and global development company Multiplex today signed the main contract for the final design and construction of the Canberra Hospital expansion, Health Minister Rachel Stephen-Smith announced. Multiplex was named the ACT Government’s partner on the construction project in August 2020.
“This is an exciting milestone for this project, and it should be exciting for every Canberran,” Ms Stephen-Smith said.
The Hospital expansion – the largest healthcare infrastructure commitment undertaken by any ACT Government – is expected to open by mid-2024. The centrepiece will be a 40,000sqm Emergency, Surgical and Critical Healthcare Building.
“The expansion will ensure that the Canberra community has access to a world-class tertiary hospital where they’ll receive the very best care as our community grows,” Ms Stephen-Smith said.
“The increased capacity, the fit-for-purpose facilities that this project delivers will help transform emergency and critical health care for Canberrans.”
Enabling work has already begun, said Major Projects Canberra chief projects officer, Duncan Edghill. Two buildings have been refurbished; and new buildings housing administration and the sexual health centre have been erected. A temporary carpark on the former CIT site will provide 1,100 more parking spaces.
The next step will be to demolish the two buildings where the new facility will be constructed, then begin excavations, Mr Edghill said. “The Canberra community will see the new facility level by level coming out of the ground over coming years.”
Since August, the ACT Government and Multiplex have refined the early designs for the new facility, Ms Stephen-Smith said. Public comment on the revised development application closed earlier this month.
Over the coming months, the partners will consult with hospital staff, clinicians, consumers, and locals on detailed design.
The Canberra Hospital expansion was on schedule according to the timeline laid out in the last couple of years, Ms Stephen-Smith said.
“We said we were going to get the development application lodged in March; we did that. We put a timeline on agreeing the final design and construct contract with Multiplex. We have achieved the timeline that we’re aiming for. This project remains within the budget that we had set for it, and I’m really confident that Multiplex is going to deliver on the timeline that we have laid out.”
The hospital expansion was first announced in 2016, with a completion date of 2022.
State-of-the-art facilities – including a new emergency department – will address the long waiting times that have plagued Canberra Hospital, the minister stated.
Canberra has the longest patient waiting times in the country, according to both the Australian Institute of Health and Welfare and ACT Public Health Services. Patients have been treated in corridors or children’s wards, or sent from Canberra Hospital to Calvary.
The problem, Ms Stephen-Smith has said, is patient flow. “It’s about getting people through the emergency department and into a ward if they need to be admitted, or through the emergency department in a good treatment time if they’re going to be admitted and then go home,” she said last year. “If we can get that bit right, we can actually manage the number of people who are presenting at the emergency department.”
The new emergency department will ensure patients efficiently flow from emergency departments into wards, the minister said today. Prototype rooms will be tested at the CIT.
The government also plans to build an off-site elective surgery centre and a new northside hospital, replacing Calvary Hospital.
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