Government confirms Mount Barker Hospital site while ramping remains ”worse than ever before”

The location for the new $220m Mount Barker Hospital has been confirmed – see the artist impressions. This comes amid fresh concerns about ramping and hospital waiting times.

The current site of Mount Barker District Soldiers’ Memorial Hospital has been confirmed as the location of the new Mount Barker Hospital – a $220m development the government hopes will help address the state’s ramping crisis.

It comes as the opposition renewed criticism of the Labor government over hospital waiting times and ramping figures, which showed 3583 hours were lost to ramping in December last year.

The new Mount Barker Hospital will be built on the site of the existing Mount Barker District Soldiers’ Memorial Hospital.

The location, confirmed by the state government on Tuesday, was selected following a rapid assessment that examined all options and identified multiple benefits of using the existing site.

They include the ability to incorporate the new Mount Barker emergency department, which is nearing completion, into the hospital, and scope for a staged rollout of new beds and services.

Artist impressions of the new Mount Barker Hospital. Supplied: State Government

The new hospital will have 102 beds – 68 more than the current capacity – and will include more beds for maternity, paediatric, rehabilitation, medical, surgical and palliative care.

Initial works are expected to start by the end of this year, with construction expected to be completed by the end of 2027. Services at the existing hospital will continue to operate throughout that period.

Premier Peter Malinauskas said the Hills were rapidly growing and extra hospital services were an important plan of the government’s plan to address ramping.

“A bigger and better Mount Barker Hospital is exactly what the local community has been calling for, and we are getting on with the job of delivering this important election commitment,” he said.

Opposition spokesman John Gardner has called out the government over long waits at public hospitals, which he linked to the ramping crisis.

Artist impressions of the new Mount Barker Hospital. Supplied: State Government

“We know ramping is worse than ever before, skyrocketing 135 per cent since February 2022,” he said.

“Peter Malinauskas promised he’d throw every cent at ramping and hospital overcrowding, but it hasn’t taken long for the Premier to forget his priorities and become infatuated with rubbing shoulders with celebrities and sports stars.”

Health minister Chris Picton acknowledged the ramping crisis is “not acceptable” and said the government is putting every “possible resource” to get the numbers down.

“We have inherited a health system that doesn’t have the capacity, that we need to be able to cater for the patients that we’re seeing and the acuity of those patients, dealing with the fact that we don’t have appropriate primary care facilities and GPS that people can get into,” he said.

“The Liberal Party are being absolutely cute with their figures, in terms of comparing to a time when all elective surgery was shut down across the state.

“We’re now facing the pain of having to deal with the catch up of that elective surgery that was cancelled.”

Mr Picton said the government is bringing every possible beds into emergency departments to help people “who are stuck every day waiting for a bed”.

“If you look here, at the Mount Barker hospital, it’s great that we’re going to have that federally funded, new emergency department coming online here shortly,” he said.

“But if we don’t have the beds behind it, then we get people stuck in the emergency department, we can’t bring the next ambulances in and if the next ambulances are stuck, then they can’t respond to cases in the community.”