Women’s and Children’s hospital rebuild costs under the microscope
Adelaide’s new Women’s and Children’s Hospital could cost five times more to build than the new private Calvary hospital for roughly the same number of beds. Now, doctors and politicians on both sides are asking why.
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The state opposition is demanding the release of a secret document detailing the costs of the new Women’s and Children’s Hospital after Treasurer Rob Lucas last week described build estimates as “extraordinarily high”.
It’s been more than a year since The Advertiser reported an initial down payment of $550 million to build the hospital - to be co-located on the Royal Adelaide Hospital precinct - but there are still no final costings.
The Advertiser understands the build cost is now around $1.8 billion, more than five times that for new private Calvary Adelaide hospital in Angas St, built for $345m despite having roughly the same number of beds.
It is more than two years since the government established a high-level task-force, headed by Jim Birch, now chair of the Women’s and Children’s Health Network, to plan for the new hospital.
Mr Birch is also chair of the Calvary Health Care group and oversaw the build of its new Adelaide Hospital.
Opposition health spokesman Chris Picton said the new hospital build was already delayed by two years with a proposed opening date now in 2026.
He has called on Health Minister Stephen Wade to immediately release the task-force report so costings can be scrutinised.
“The public have a right to know what the task force report said and what advice the government has on exactly how much this hospital project will cost taxpayers,” Mr Picton said.
“In fact the government informed parliament the report would be released after it was received. That was almost 18 months ago.”
In a written response Mr Wade said Labor had wanted to “downgrade services, split services and keep children” at the hospital’s current North Adelaide site.
“Instead, we will be activating thousands of jobs during the nWCH’s construction while also creating world-class health services for South Australians,” the Minister said.
Minister Wade provided documentation from March last year that shows the costs for the hospital at around $1.2 billion for a building of 75,000 sqm.
Costs include $504m for the hospital build, $56m for consultant fees, $39m in government fees, $45m for fixtures, fittings and equipment and $60m for specialist medical equipment.
A SA Health spokeswoman said the department had undertaken a study last year to gauge the disparity in costs for the proposed nWCH and the new Calvary Adelaide Hospital.
“This work was not part of the work undertaken by the new WCH task-force and the model is not an indication of the planned world-class facility,” she said.
The SA Health study concluded that there were key services offered at the new WCH not typically provided in a private hospital.
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Those services included paediatric Accident and Emergency, oncology/chemotherapy, mental health services, family support services and teaching and research.
But clinicians The Advertiser has spoken with claim several of those services are provided at Calvary and that it provides other services the nWCH will not.
They remain unconvinced about the justifications for a possible $1 billion difference in hospital build costs.
One senior surgeon who works in both the public and private sectors said: “No one is suggesting all hospitals are the same but the build figures seem too far apart.”
Asked why he believed the hospital cost estimate was “extraordinarily high”, Treasurer Lucas said he was still waiting for “final details of the business case for figures”.