$63m broken election promise as Redland Hospital expansion delayed and ED on hold indefinitely
The expansion of an intensive care unit at a bayside hospital, which recorded the state’s worst ever ramping rate last year, has been delayed until 2025, breaking a 2020 election promise. WATCH THE VIDEO
Redlands Coast
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The expansion of a bayside hospital, which recorded the state’s worst ever ramping rate last year, has been delayed until 2025, breaking a 2020 election promise.
Health Minister Shannon Fentiman confirmed the extended timeframe, claiming the $63 million Redland Hospital Stage 1 Expansion would not be completed until 2025.
Costs for the six-bed ICU extension had also blown out to $77.9 million and parts of the promised Stage 2 expansion, which includes a new emergency department, had been postponed indefinitely.
“I am advised the project team is actively seeking opportunities to bring the practical completion date forward,” Ms Fentiman said.
“The new facility is expected to welcome new patients by mid-2025, based on an operational commissioning period appropriate for the scale and complexity of this project.”
Redland Hospital is the only metropolitan Queensland Health hospital without an intensive care unit or a critical care unit, and does not provide around-the-clock general surgical services or inpatient orthopaedic services.
Ambulance ramping at the hospital peaked at 73 per cent in July 2022, the worst ramping of any hospital recorded in Queensland history.
In 2021, it was claimed the Redland Hospital bed shortage was due to an influx of elderly aged care patients on weekends putting pressure on hospital bed availability.
The expansion, which was set to deliver six intensive care beds and 37 additional beds, was promised at the 2020 state election with initial plans for the building to open in late 2022.
Those plans were then pushed back with the new unit then rescheduled to open in the first half of 2024 and now in 2025.
Despite the ICU delays, a new 28-bed modular ward was built in the hospital grounds in October, which Ms Fentiman said would boost services when it opened before Christmas.
ADCO, the building contractor for Stage 1, was currently updating designs for a walkway between the modular ward and the main hospital and planned new emergency department.
Ms Fentiman said she looked forward to updating the Redland community on the ongoing progress of the project.
The soon-to-open modular ward is sited next to a $48 million multi-storey carpark, which opened in April.
Claims that the clinical ward expansion had been shelved first emerged in April when a leaked email from Metro South Health chief finance officer Robert Mackway-Jones surfaced.
The email triggered concerns that the new carpark, which charges for parking, had taken precedence over the major clinical upgrade works.
Federal Budget papers also showed there was no money allocated in the next financial year or in future years for Redland Hospital’s stage two expansion, publicised as a major clinical upgrade.
LNP candidate for Redlands Rebecca Young said the delay was “a blatant broken election promise”.
“It’s a further kick in the guts for a rapidly growing community already suffering some of the worst ambulance ramping in the nation,” she said.
“Easier access to health services is a priority for the LNP because it is a priority for Queenslanders.
“Sadly, this latest delay for the people of Redlands proves because Labor is in chaos.”
The expansion is part of a multiphase plan to increase the hospital’s capacity and includes a $150 million new mental health facility in the hospital precinct.
A new Redlands Satellite Hospital also opened this year at Redland Bay, about 12km from the hospital.
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