Emergency help, healthcare and fitness in infrastructure spotlight
From the new Women’s and Children’s Hospital to a purpose-built SA Ambulance Service hub – and Adelaide’s new aquatic centre – a host of health-focused projects are taking shape.
SA News
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A flagship new SA Ambulance Service headquarters at Mile End South is a gamechanger for the organisation, says chief executive officer Rob Elliott.
The new $120 million hub – which includes an Emergency Operations Centre, State Health Co-ordination Centre and Adelaide Ambulance Station – provides the space and technology needed to manage a modernised ambulance service.
It is a key part of what Elliott describes as “the biggest episode of growth” he has witnessed in his more than three decades at SAAS – and a “significant investment” in the future of emergency ambulance services in the state.
“Construction of the new ambulance headquarters and the Adelaide station at Mile End South is progressing as planned – both on time and within budget,” he says.
“The Emergency Operations Centre is taking shape, with ceilings and glass partitions now installed on the ground floor. Critical communications and electrical areas are being fitted out, while the facade of the new ambulance station is nearly complete and internal works continue.”
The new headquarters will house more than 338 personnel, including Triple Zero (000) call takers and dispatchers and clinical staff.
“It will also serve as the new home for the State Health Co-ordination Centre, enhancing our ability to coordinate patient care across the state,” Elliott says. “We anticipate practical completion of the new HQ and Adelaide ambulance station in the coming months, with plans to commence operations at the new site in December this year.”
The operational move to the new building will take a staged approach to ensure critical Triple Zero (000) call services remain uninterrupted, safeguarding the ambulance service’s capacity to respond to emergencies without compromise during the relocation process.
“Ensuring no impact on patient safety, uninterrupted Triple Zero (000) services, and robust support for relocating teams are our top priorities during this operational transition,” Elliott says. “These commitments are vital to maintaining emergency care to the people of South Australia.”
The soon-to-be completed headquarters complements the construction, upgrade and rebuild of 24 ambulance stations throughout Adelaide and regional SA.
Stations have been completed and are now open at Norwood, Woodville, Edwardstown, Port Augusta, Mount Barker, Victor Harbor, Birdwood and Strathalbyn, with construction nearly complete on a new Gawler station. Rebuilding work on the Campbelltown centre is also under way. Construction of Whyalla, Marion and Two Wells stations is also scheduled to commence this year.
Aside from the new and revamped stations, the investment in the SAAS will see 350 more paramedics, ambulance officers, clinical leaders and emergency medical dispatchers across the state, along with 36 more ambulances on the road by 2026.
“It is the biggest episode of growth I have seen in my 35 years at SAAS,” Elliott says. “The fact we have been able to achieve it is extraordinary. It’s a whole-of-organisation effort – this has affected our fleet department in terms of new ambulances and equipment, our corporate services in terms of the new builds and recruitment, and operational staff for increased training. It’s been a fantastic couple of years.”
The investment has resulted in significant improvements in emergency response times.
“Our lights and sirens responses are priority one and priority two,” Elliott says. “Priority twos are the majority of our responses and we have managed to effectively double our performance in the past two years, which is just extraordinary. And we’re not stopping yet – we’re striving to improve even more.”
A new team of 20 ambulance officers has been recruited to better transfer patients out of hospitals – getting them home sooner and freeing up beds for others – while SAAS is also introducing an electronic patient care record (ePCR) system to improve patient safety in the field, while expanding the clinical telephone assessment telehealth service and establishing a mental health focused role 24/7.
“That’s an absolute innovation here in South Australia,” Elliott says. “We partnered with the Hospital Research Foundation to trial having a dedicated mental health focused service.
“The trial was really successful, offering patient safety and some really good outcomes, so with the recent investment we are turning that into a 24/7 service, another first for paramedicine.”
New health era for SA families
South Australian families will be the key beneficiaries of the new Women’s and Children’s Hospital, on the edges of Adelaide’s north-west parklands.
Being built to replace the ageing North Adelaide hospital, the contemporary facilities at the former SA Police Barracks site at Thebarton will have more beds, theatres and greater emergency capacity – and increased scope for future expansion. Slated for completion in 2031, it is planned to provide capacity for 414 overnight beds – 56 more than the existing hospital – with plans for an onsite helipad.
An integrated four-bed Intensive Care Unit will enable women requiring critical care to remain on site rather than be transferred to the Royal Adelaide Hospital.
Department for Health and Wellbeing deputy chief executive Judith Formston, above, says a key benefit of the “new vibrant hospital” – aside from its parkland setting within Adelaide’s burgeoning bio-med precinct – will be the greater scope for families of young patients to stay with them.
“The family accommodation will be a huge step up,” she says. “At the moment if you’re staying with your child in hospital there’s not as many opportunities to stay and be comfortable so this will be a huge benefit.
“If you go to the hospital and you end up staying with your child, quite often you’ll have a chair, or a fold-out bed to lay on, but the new hospital will actually have it set up so family members can stay there more comfortably, with in-patient rooms planned to have a day bed which doubles as a sleeping space for parents or support people.
“In addition to this, the new hospital is proposed to include a Centralised Family Accommodation Unit, which will cater for a short-term stay of an additional parent or carer of a baby.”
Formston says the family-first focus is just one of the benefits of building a brand-new hospital, with the opportunity to design a facility to deliver a more innovative “patient experience” right from the start.
Construction on the 5.7-ha site began in April 2024, when the first sod was turned on what had been the long-standing police base.
The first stage included the construction of a car park and precinct works. A second team – including a consortium of architecture firms Billard Leece Partnership, Bates-Smart, Grieve Gillett and Taylor Cullity Lethlean – was appointed this month to lead the design of the main clinical building and remaining precinct works.
Formston says during its construction peak there is likely to be a 2100-strong workforce at the site, which will be dominated by up to seven tower cranes.
“We’ve done a lot of work with the clinicians and the hospital staff around what they need for a new hospital,” she says. “We’ve fed that through to the design team, who will now look at how to best deliver it.”
Easy patient flow throughout the hospital is key.
“We want to make sure that the flows are set up so the minute you’re entering the hospital, the wayfinding’s right,” Formston says.
“Do people actually need to wait in the waiting room or can you now do a digital set-up so you can actually go and wait down in the park or the playgrounds? We need to work out how we can actually enable that patient experience when they come into the hospital.”
Formston says with the buildings at the current North Adelaide hospital on average almost 70 years of age, upgrading – and building out – to meet modern standards is virtually impossible.
“The clinical adjacencies aren’t right there because you keep bolting on bits and pieces as services expand – so building a new hospital actually helps you get it right from the start around how the patients will flow through the system,” she says.
Building healthcare in Adelaide’s south
Foundations are now being poured for the centrepiece of a half-billion-dollar investment in the health infrastructure of Adelaide’s southern suburbs.
The 7-storey building at the front of the Flinders Medical Centre, due for delivery in 2028, will reshape the services offered by the Southern Adelaide Local Health Network.
“The first of two tower cranes is on site, with the second arriving in July,” SALHN chief executive officer Kerrie Mahon says of the Acute Services Building.
“This project will deliver an additional 98 beds, including 18 medical day unit beds, 64 inpatient beds, and 16 intensive care unit beds.
“They are core to the types of patients who present to an emergency department.
“They will help us move patients through to the right sort of beds they need sooner.”
The 98 beds add to extra capacity already opened recently in SALHN at the Repat Health Precinct and within Flinders Medical Centre.
The existing Intensive Care Unit in the FMC will remain in operation, integrated with the new unit under the same leadership.
More patient capacity is also being created by expanding the mental health focused Margaret Tobin Centre – adjacent to FMC – and the Noarlunga Hospital. Construction work on those two projects is well advanced.
The investment of $498 million at the FMC and the Repat is being funded by the state and federal governments, with the $74 million at Noarlunga funded by the SA Government.
“As a collective, all of these upgrades and new buildings will work really well together to respond to the community’s needs from the emergency department right through to surgery, and inpatient stays,” Mahon says.
A floor at the new Acute Services Building will be dedicated to ophthalmology, and include two operating theatres and, for the first time at FMC, a separate paediatric ophthalmology area.
The top two floors of the new building will each house 32 beds for adult inpatients.
Most will be single rooms to improve progression-of-care and reduce cross-infection risks.
“We’re also provisioning for fold-out beds for a support person,” Mahon says.
“We do have regional and remote people come in, so that will be available when needed.
“There will be quiet rooms and lounge areas where families can visit if they don’t need to stay. It will be a beautiful facility, with lovely western views out toward the sea.”
The Acute Services Building will have four new operating theatres and related recovery spaces. On completion, FMC will then have 16 operating theatres.
“This will certainly give us more capacity to move through our elective surgery waiting lists,” Mahon says.
The new building will become the main entrance with improved access, including a drop-off zone covered against the weather.
Ready to make a splash
The new Adelaide Aquatic Centre is taking shape, with expectations that water-lovers will be able to make a splash this summer.
The concrete structures for the pools at the North Adelaide complex – which replaces the former centre in Pardipardinyilla/Denise Norton Park – have progressively been completed, with testing to ensure their integrity ongoing as the main structure is being built.
The new $135 million centre will boast a host of family-friendly features, from a 50m pool, a 25m outdoor pool and dedicated learn-to-swim and warm water rehabilitation pools through to an outdoor lagoon and “splash pad” and water slides, as well as extensive gym and fitness facilities.
Department for Infrastructure and Transport executive director, Infrastructure Delivery, Simon Morony says progress is continuing “really well”.
“We’ve planned the construction phase from a long time out, including the demolition of the former centre,” he says.
“Construction’s been under way for around 18 months – and it’s really taking shape on site. “The timber frames and pool structures are all complete and we’ve been busy testing those to make sure the pools are all watertight.
“And then in the coming months, there’ll be a lot more progress on the internal fit-out. And there’ll be external elements such as the water slides being installed as well.
“We’re on track for opening this summer and looking forward to achieving that – as we get a bit closer to completion we’ll be able to confirm an opening date.”
The design intent – which is being constructed by contractor Sarah Constructions – is centred around the creation of high-quality spaces that use warm and natural tones to reflect the local landscape.
There is also a strong focus on ensuring the spaces are welcoming for people of all ages, cultures and abilities.
“The previous centre had come to the end of its lifespan, but we know it was an important facility for the community and the new centre will serve many generations to come,” Morony says.
The “carefully considered” design takes in a number of environmentally sustainable features, while the centre’s smaller footprint ensures more than 1000sqm is returned to Park Lands.
“It’s an all-electric centre, powered by 100 per cent renewable energy,” he says. “The building itself has been designed to be airtight, which gives you an improved indoor air quality and importantly enhances the operational energy efficiency.
“The ultra-fine pool filtration systems also provide operational benefits – and then there’s other components to the facility, such as solar panels, EV charging stations, sun shading on the facade – and a water-sensitive urban design car park as well.”
Site enabling works started in late 2023, with the main construction starting in 2024. The building phase has offered plenty of employment opportunities, which will flow through to the centre once it’s open to the public under the management of experienced operators YMCA Aquatic.
“More than 1500 jobs are being supported over the life of the construction phase and that’s from builders and engineers to plumbers and painters,” Morony says. “We obviously needed a whole raft of different skill sets to build what is a state-of-the-art centre.
“Sarah Constructions has inducted more than 1300 people to the construction site. And those 1300 people so far have completed more than 230,000 hours worth of work.
“In terms of the operations, up to 300 jobs will be created to staff the new aquatic centre – that’s lifeguards, instructors, administration staff and so on.”
Staff who worked at the former Aquatic Centre will be given the first opportunity to express their interest at filling the roles with YMCA Aquatic, a non-profit community organisation that also operates the SA Aquatic and Leisure Centre at Oaklands Park.
Morony is confident the new swimming centre will more than meet community expectations. “I think it’s going to give people a fantastic new place to come and swim for fitness or for fun,” he says.
“So if you’re a serious swimmer you can get out there and really utilise the place but others might just come to it to improve or maintain their fitness.
“It really will offer a range of uses for everyone who wants to visit.”
Elbie set for the life aquatic
Little Elbie won’t be able to stop himself from taking the plunge when the new Adelaide Aquatic Centre opens, his mum Rachael Neumann reckons.
“He will be jumping in from the side with enthusiasm, that’s for sure,” she says of her water-baby son, who has been a regular participant of learn-to-swim classes since he was only six months of age.
“And even before we started taking him to swimming lessons, he’s always enjoyed the water and swimming pools whenever we’ve been on holidays – and he just loves the beach.”
When the North Adelaide centre closed for the construction of the new facility, Rachael and husband Brandon, of Bowden, elected to continue Elbie’s learn-to-swim lessons in Unley.
“The whole (replacement swim centre) process has been really smooth and helpful, but we’re looking forward to coming back to North Adelaide because it’s much closer to home,” she says.
The completed centre will include a host of features including a dedicated learn-to-swim pool, a lagoon outdoor pool, an outdoor “splash pad” and extensive gym and fitness facilities.
“We’re just really excited to see the new centre,” Rachael says.
“It will be great to have something to do while we tag team and watch Elbie swim. I’ll be able to go and swim laps myself and if there’s a good gym in the same centre, then that might be useful as well.”
Originally published as Emergency help, healthcare and fitness in infrastructure spotlight
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