Labor promises $1b to upgrade, rename hospital after Queen

Victoria’s major parties have now each pledged hundreds of millions of dollars to upgrade Maroondah Hospital in Melbourne’s east, but emergency physicians say they want to know how any new facility will be staffed.

The opposition on Saturday committed $400 million, before Premier Daniel Andrews on Sunday declared that would be less than half of what was needed and offered up to $1 billion to rebuild and rename the hospital after Queen Elizabeth II.

Labor would create 200 new beds, double the opposition’s commitment, along with 14 extra treatment spaces, a new emergency department and mental health hub.

Dr Clare Skinner, president of the Australasian College of Emergency Medicine (ACME), welcomed dedicated areas for children, treatment areas and the mental health hub, but said she looked forward to details about how the expanded hospital would be staffed.

“The college welcomes the provision of further information on the investment, particularly in relation to workforce, and encourages Victorian Labor to work with [the college], and other key stakeholders,” Skinner said.

Andrews on Sunday said hospitals were just shells without health staff. The government has announced it would stump up the cost of degrees for nurses and midwives, and is offering scholarships of up to $13,000 for international workers in an attempt to recruit.

Premier Daniel Andrews at The Royal Victoria Eye and Ear Hospital on Sunday.Credit: Meredith O’Shea

Lisa Fitzpatrick, Victorian secretary of the Australian Nursing and Midwifery Federation, said the state needed a strategy to build capacity and the union would focus on the party that helped the workforce grow.

“It’s important Victoria keeps planning and building for the capacity and services we will need in the future,” she said.

Labor would begin construction on the new Maroondah Hospital in 2025, which would open in stages from 2029 at a cost of between $850 million and $1.05 billion.

Andrews could not immediately say how Labor’s announcement on Sunday would be funded, but the government is expected to release its full costings for all announcements closer to the poll.

The state government and opposition have made duelling election commitments for the Maroondah Hospital. Credit: Wayne Hawkins

In the lead-up to the 2018 election, Andrews promised to upgrade the same emergency department for children and families. That work, still in the planning stages four years later, has not begun and would be wrapped into the updated announcement.

Opposition leader Matthew Guy on Saturday announced a Coalition government would upgrade the same hospital with a new emergency department, ICU and critical care unit, with 100 extra beds and refurbished operating theatres.

He said the growing outer east had been left behind after eight years under Andrews.

“He’s had eight years to do something about the Maroondah Hospital,” Guy said on Sunday. “The premier likes to make these announcements just before an election.”

Opposition Leader Matthew Guy has pledged to upgrade the hospital in Victoria’s east.Credit: Luis Enrique Ascui

Andrews said the opposition’s pledge was “less than half what’s needed”, since Labor has costed an upgrade to the emergency department alone at $370 million.

He made the announcement at the Royal Victorian Ear and Eye Hospital in an attempt to highlight what he described as the Liberal Party’s repeated failure to do proper due diligence.

That hospital, in East Melbourne, was promised a $164.86 million redevelopment by the then-Liberal government in 2010, but the delayed work has blown out to $317.8 million after asbestos was found.

Guy said the government had no right to lecture others on health, after the triple-zero service buckled during COVID-19 and emergency patients arriving by ambulance were queued in outdoor tents.

“Now the government wants to lecture everyone else on fixing the health system? Please.”

Continuing its health spending spree on Sunday, the opposition promised $180 million towards a medical research facility at Box Hill Hospital — $72 million of which Guy hopes would come from the federal government. Another 10 per cent would be provided by Monash University.

The opposition would also build 800 car parks at the site, half of which would be free for staff.

The outstanding cost of $108 million would be diverted from the first stage of the Suburban Rail Loop, which the opposition would shelve to prioritise health.

Guy has come under scrutiny over how much cash is actually available through the project to fund more than a dozen hospital announcements he’s already made.

“I can tell you upfront, that’s how I’m going to pay for my announcements. The premier can’t tell you how he’ll pay for his. Is it taxes? Is it debt? What’s it going to be?” Guy said.

Maroondah Hospital is part of a key battleground seat at the November state election, sitting near the intersection of three marginal lower house seats.

Following a boundary redistribution since the last election, Ringwood is held by Labor on an estimated margin of about 3 per cent while Croydon is held by the Liberal Party on an estimated margin of 1 per cent.

Labor holds the seat of Bayswater, but it is now notionally a Liberal Party seat, according to the Victorian Electoral Commission, with an estimated margin of less than 1 per cent.

The Morning Edition newsletter is our guide to the day’s most important and interesting stories, analysis and insights. Sign up here.