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Health Infrastructure Minister John Carey is adamant the new women’s and babies hospital in Murdoch will be delivered by 2029 but has left the door open for cost blowouts as he revealed the design for the $1.8 billion facility.
Carey announced the hospital, being built by Italian builder WeBuild, would be 12 storeys high, contain 274 beds and 2500 new parking bays across two separate car parks.
An artist impression of the new Women and Babies hospital at Murdoch.
It will include inpatient facilities for gynaecology and maternity patients, a neonatal unit for newborns, operating theatres, a family birthing centre and outpatient clinics.
Carey brushed aside questions about the cost of the project after a leaked status report from April suggested the facility was tracking to cost more than $1.9 billion, saying that was before the newly formed Office of Major Infrastructure Delivery took over the project from WA Health.
However, he said he couldn’t rule out cost escalations in the future.
“These things are always changing. I have to say this: I’ll never rule it out. As the Minister for housing, I know this, cost escalations are a matter of fact of life,” he said.
“However, through [OMID] having oversight of these kinds of projects, we’re very focused, obviously on cost, but also delivery schedule.
“There were doubters; the opposition has talked down this timeframe. They said we can’t do it. What is demonstrated is that through our office of major projects, we are taking a very accelerated approach to delivering our hospital infrastructure.”
Earthworks are currently underway and piling works will begin in November.
Builder Georgiou Group has been selected to deliver the first stage of upgrades of parking at the hospital.
Carey denied the government was building a new hospital in Nedlands near the Perth Children’s Hospital for high-risk mothers after this masthead revealed the Department of Health was canvassing options for a facility of that kind in Nedlands.
An artist impression of the new Women and Babies hospital at Murdoch.
Labor’s decision to move the women’s and babies hospital to Murdoch from its original site in Nedlands became one of the March elections biggest political battlegrounds.
Doctors and nurses raised concerns about the distance between the Murdoch hospital and PCH where sick babies would need to be transported to for care.
Health Minister Meredith Hammat confirmed the state was looking at what maternity services it needed in Nedlands and that those would be in place by 2029 but bristled when pressed for further details.
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“The question that’s been raised is whether we need to have additional services for those high-risk pregnancies, and so that’s the consultation that’s ongoing to make sure that we’ve got the services that we need,” she said.
Shadow health minister Libby Mettam said the Cook government should be opening a new world-class facility alongside Perth Children’s Hospital today, not starting a partial replacement more than 20 kilometres away.
“Labor promised a replacement for King Edward Memorial Hospital in 2019, six years later they are only just turning the sod on a facility that makes no provision for the sickest babies born in this state,” she said.
“Again, it points to a focus on the wrong priorities by a government that has lost sight of what’s important to Western Australians.”
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