Hutchinson Builders Toowoomba: Local workers building five new Queensland, NSW health projects

Toowoomba workers are helping create massive and essential health infrastructures projects across Queensland and NSW. The full list here.

Hutchinson Builders' Sean Lees.

Sean Lees and his team at Hutchinson Builders know how essential hospitals and health facilities are to regional centres — which is why they’re building nearly $130m of them.

“It’s awesome to be part of it, because you know how much these facilities will be valued,” he said.

Hutchinson Builders Team Leader Sean Lees. Picture: Supplied.

“Babies are going to be born there and lives are going to be saved in those walls.”

Toowoomba will play a leading role in upgrading health infrastructure across both Queensland and NSW across both this year and 2024, with the local Hutchies crew now engaged in five massive projects worth $128m.

These include two hospitals in regional Queensland, two new hospital units in Toowoomba and health worker accommodation to house hundreds of doctors and nurses across regional NSW.

By the time the final key is turned, Mr Lees said the projects will have created work for more than 6500 tradespeople — many of which work for Hutchies itself.

“It’s that we’ve had a lot of experience with health projects (in the past) and we’d like to think we’ve become reasonably good at them,” he said.

“When it comes to how critical health infrastructure is, it’s not something you take lightly, it’s about as serious of a piece of infrastructure as you can take on.”

Here is how Toowoomba will help build regional health facilities:

Concept art for the new Tara Hospital by Hutchinson Builders.

1. Tara Hospital

The proud Western Downs community, which has suffered through bushfires and tragedies in recent years, will see a completely-new hospital built by the start of 2025.

Mr Lees said the $25m project would see Hutchies build the new facility next door before demolishing the decades-old existing building.

“Tara is an aged facility and Queensland Health has determined it’s at the end of its life,” he said.

“It’s not a refurb or a tack-on, it’s a brand-new facility and significant at that.

“I grew up in a small town like Tara and you know that regional areas don’t always benefit from the same quality of services as we’re lucky to have in the metropolitan areas, so you know that any infrastructure you build in those little towns will be used.

“Places like Tara often have infrastructure that’s 40 to 60 years old, so the dichotomy between what they’ve got and what they’re going to have is significant.”

Darling Downs Health chief executive Annette Scott said the new hospital would include a 12-bed inpatient unit as well as adult mental health, clinical and other outreach services.

Concept art for the new Normanton Hospital by Hutchinson Builders.

2. Normanton Hospital

It’s not every day you could build an entire 2200sq m hospital in a shed and then drive it to its community nearly 2000km away.

But that’s what Mr Lees and his crew have been tasked with after securing the contract for Normanton Hospital in far north Queensland earlier this year.

The entire facility, valued at $40m to build, will be constructed in Toowoomba before being shipped in 42 pieces and assembled in the tiny town.

Mr Lees said this would heavily reduce the cost to the taxpayer while delivering key health services to a remote community.

“We’ll handle everything turnkey, so it probably reduces the number of site staff by about 80 per cent, and if you think about the cost of long-term transit, taking people on dirt roads and away from families, it’s a really easy project to get behind,” he said.

“It’s a long way away, but those people still need the same level of care and have similar health challenges to here.

“To have a facility that you know is going to meet their needs is pretty special.”

North West Hospital and Health Service chief executive Sean Birgan said he was proud to be involved in a project of this complexity and scale, providing facilities on par with metros.

“It’s a circa $40m development and there will be no compromise – it will be the same as something built in Brisbane and lead to great health outcomes,” he said.

The project is expected to start before Christmas, with a completion time of early 2025.

Concept art of health workers accommodation in NSW, created by Hutchinson Builders.

3. NSW health accommodation

Toowoomba will also build accommodation for hundreds of health workers across regional NSW.

Mr Lees said seven communities would benefit from the new housing.

“With the shortage of housing for healthcare workers, NSW Health Infrastructure has approached us to look at different prefabricated off-site housing types and we’re going to ship that out to seven different sites across regional NSW, and that’s going to accommodate doctors, nurses and specialists,” he said.

“That job is going to start work in February next year – we’ll build a prototype and we’ll start on the final product in April and they’ll all be done by early 2025.”

Hutchison Builders Pty Ltd has been awarded the tender to construct the new Toowoomba Day Surgery located on the Ballie Henderson Hospital campus.

4. Baillie Henderson Hospital day surgery

The finishing touches are being put on Baillie Henderson’s new day surgery, with the $30m project expected to be completed by Hutchinson Builders before Christmas.

Mr Lees said an extraordinary 2500 people had worked on the project since it started in 2022.

The surgery, featuring two state of the art operating theatres as well as recovery and discharges spaces, was first announced by the state government in the 2021 budget.

“The project will provide additional capacity for our clinical staff to perform day surgery on the Baillie Henderson Hospital campus, which will be home to the new Toowoomba Hospital,” Darling Downs Health executive director infrastructure Paul Clayton said.

“The new day surgery will see two state of the art operating theatres constructed.

“It will also include recovery and discharge spaces and waiting rooms for friends and families.”

Photos of the completed intensive care unit at St Vincent's Private Hospital in Toowoomba by Hutchinson Builders.

5. St Vincent’s Private Hospital intensive care unit

The doors have finally opened on St Vincent’s new ICU in Toowoomba, with the $8m project completed just weeks ago by Hutchies’ local team.

Acting as the third storey of the hospital’s recently-built emergency department, the construction was aided by a 35m-tall crane.

Mr Lees said the crane was used to minimise impacts on what was a live department.

“It was a unique challenge because we were building a building on top of two live floors, it was a super critical part of the site so we were desperate to minimise disruption and we felt that the crane would help do that,” he said.

“It was probably the right call, we were able to have as light a touch as possible.”

Photos of the completed intensive care unit at St Vincent's Private Hospital in Toowoomba by Hutchinson Builders.