The ACT Government has announced it will invest an additional $1.34 billion in the Northside Hospital — “the single largest infrastructure project for the ACT for the rest of this decade”, Chief Minister Andrew Barr said — bringing total funding to $1.5 billion over the next seven years.
The new hospital campus will replace the North Canberra Hospital, which was built in 1979, and is described by the government as “ageing”. It will be built on the site of the former Calvary Public Hospital which the government, controversially, forcibly acquired in 2023.
A seven-storey clinical services building is the first stage of the campus redevelopment. The government expects to ‘break ground’ on the project in 2027-28 and to complete construction in 2031. North Canberra Hospital will continue operating until then.
The new building, health minister Rachel Stephen-Smith MLA said, will have more than 300 treatment spaces; an emergency department with a dedicated paediatric short stay unit and support for mental health presentations; a 14-bed intensive care unit; a birth centre, with six birthing suites, a maternity inpatient unit, and a special care nursery; eight operating theatres, with provision for two more; two endoscopy suites, with space for a third; more than 200 inpatient beds; and bigger outpatient spaces.
The Haydon Drive intersection to access the hospital will be upgraded; 700 more parking spaces constructed; and a 100-place childcare centre built.
The government will borrow money to pay for the construction. In response to concerns raised in independent economist Saul Eslake’s recent report about government borrowing for infrastructure projects, treasurer Chris Steel MLA said that the government must invest in health care infrastructure now to support population growth in north Canberra.
“These are infrastructure facilities that will be used by generations of Canberrans to come,” Mr Steel said. “We need to invest now in this critical health infrastructure to support acute services on the north side, help take pressure off the hospital on the south side, and build for the future. That has to happen now. It can’t wait another 10 years.”
The government has already appointed construction company Multiplex to plan and design the building. Services are being moved from buildings that will be demolished.
