Canberra Hospital Buildings 23 and 6, previously used for clerical and administrative support, are being demolished; in their stead, a new facility for pathology and other clinical services will rise. 

Construction company Multiplex will demolish the two buildings. Demolition work is expected to take several months, and to be completed in the third quarter of this year.

The government’s original intention, as announced in April, was that the demolition of these buildings would begin late last year. The demolition contractor has been on site since December doing prep work, a spokesperson said. Soft stripping works of Building 23 started yesterday.

Staff and services that used these buildings were relocated at the end of last year. New work spaces were refurbished, and flexible working approaches, consistent with the ACT Government’s approach, have been implemented, a spokesperson said.

Health minister Rachel Stephen-Smith said the new building is an early priority of the Canberra Hospital Master Plan – the largest healthcare infrastructure commitment ever undertaken by the ACT Government. 

“The Canberra Hospital Master Plan sets out how the ACT Government will deliver new and upgraded facilities across the Canberra Hospital campus,” Ms Stephen-Smith said. 

“Tens of thousands of people work, receive care, and visit the Canberra Hospital every year. The Master Plan will ensure the campus that is accessible, welcoming and better connected.”

The new Critical Services Building will open later this year, Ms Stephen-Smith noted; the expansion of the Centenary Hospital for Women and Children opened in June; and the new Cancer Research Centre would open later this year. The government is also planning the northside hospital (promised for 2030, and to be built on the site of the former Calvary Public Hospital, forcibly acquired last year) and community-based health centres in South Tuggeranong, the Inner South, and North Gungahlin.

“The ACT Government will continue to invest in modern, purpose-built health infrastructure across the ACT,” Ms Stephen-Smith said.

However, Canberra Liberals MLA Leanne Castley, Shadow Minister for Health, criticised the government’s slowness in delivering the Canberra Hospital expansion, first announced in 2016 with a completion date of 2022.

“Labor and the Greens are big on plans, but hopeless on delivery,” Ms Castley said. “It is sadly the norm for health infrastructure projects in the ACT to protract for years.

“The new Critical Services Building is a case in point.  It’s 10 years late. Canberrans have been let down time and time again and they have paid the price in unacceptable ED, outpatient and elective surgery wait times.”

For the fourth year in a row, the ACT had the longest emergency department waiting times in the country, and its longest elective surgery waiting times in six years, the 2022–23 Report on Government Services recently revealed.

“Canberrans just want their hospitals to be safe, wait lists to be short, and promised infrastructure to be delivered in full and on schedule,” Ms Castley said. “The Liberals will do this because we’re not extending the Tram to Woden.”