Redland Hospital expansion gets $8m for demolition but no funds for construction

Plans to expand a bayside hospital, which recorded the state’s worst ever ramping rate last year, will not proceed until after an $8 million demolition of a mental health facility, the only funding for the project to be spent next year.

Redland Hospital with the new seven-storey carpark behind the main building. Picture: Judith Kerr

Plans to expand a bayside hospital, which recorded the state’s worst ever ramping rate last year, will follow an $8 million demolition of a mental health facility announced in this week’s state budget.

Redland Hospital’s stage 2 expansion plans took a small step forward after budget papers showed an allocation of $150 million for the hospital’s expansion over multiple years, but only $8 million in next year’s spending schedule.

The expansion works are believed to include new wards and a mental health unit and involve ripping down the existing mental health facility and eventually building a new 43-bed unit.

Budget papers showed money allocated for the mental health facility included $1.8m in 2024 with the rest allocated after that.

Potential delays in the expansion project were revealed in April when a leaked email from Metro South chief finance officer Robert Mackway-Jones showed the project would be on hold until after 2029 and fears it could be after the Olympics.

The email triggered concerns that a new paid-for, $48 million carpark, which opened at the hospital in April, had taken precedence over the stage 2 expansion works for the major clinical upgrade.

Health Minister Shannon Fentiman said the $8 million would be used to knock down the existing mental health facility across the road from the main hospital site with the rest of the money to be allocated “over the next few years” pending further announcements.

Ms Fentiman said work would continue at the hospital for years.

She said the government’s mental health payroll tax levy would support the investment in the new facility as part of a “clear commitment” to address the mental health and wellbeing concerns facing Queenslanders.

“It will make an enormous difference for both patients and their health outcomes, as well as for our frontline staff,” she said.

“The returns generated by that levy will provide funding for more services, and more mental health professionals where and when they are needed.

“It will also ensure people who need assistance with mental health services can receive it earlier.”

But Oodgeroo MP Mark Robinson, who announced his retirement this week after 15 years in office, said ramping at Redland Hospital remained “dangerously high” at 63 per cent.

Oodgeroo MP Mark Robinson said there was no funding in the upcoming financial year for building the hospital expansion. Redlands MP Kim Richards would not be drawn on a date for the building works to start.

“Labor promised in 2022 that the stage 1 Redland Hospital expansion would be built with an ICU and 32 new beds but 2022 came and went and even another budget does not deliver on their previous announcement,” he said.

“This budget sheds no clear further light on the Redland Hospital expansion stage 2, which the Australian Medical Association of Queensland fears has been mothballed.

“So any new promises at Redland Hospital, no matter how good they sound, will be met with some suspicion, until the 2020 election promises are first honoured.”

Redlands MP Kim Richards would not be drawn on a date for the expansion works to start but said the budget had included $25 million for building a new 28-bed ward with Hutchison builders already starting works.

“The new carpark and demolishing the existing mental health building unlocks the hospital site for continued expansion,” she said.

“The new mental health building is the first step as we commence delivering the Stage 2 expansion.”

Treasurer Cameron Dick said the construction of the new mental health facility would support 435 construction jobs and would build upon the record health capital investment of $9.78 billion that he announced in last year’s budget.

“That investment though our Health and Hospitals Plan will deliver three new hospitals, 11 major hospital expansions, and 2200 more beds for Queenslanders,” Mr Dick said.

Ms Richards said other major projects funded in the budget included the long-awaited $100 million widening to four lanes of Cleveland-Redland Bay Rd, at Anita St to Magnolia Pde, which she said was expected to be completed by October 2024.

Already $39 million has been spent on that project with $43 million earmarked to be spent in the upcoming budget and a further $13 million slated for the project after 2024.

A second state primary school for Redland Bay also received recurrent funding with works already under way for the $63.9 million venture expected to be completed by day one of school in January.

More than $30.2 million has been spent on the project being built by ADCO which was also contracted to undertake works at the hospital with a further $13 million left in the kitty for the new school’s completion after 2024.

The budget also allocated $6.9 million for the Capalaba State Hall and $13.3 million for retirement villages for short-term accommodation at Redland Bay, Toowoomba and Clayfield.