New Toowoomba Hospital: Retired Darling Downs Health chair Mike Horan reveals legacy, future of $1.5bn health investment
The new Toowoomba Hospital and surrounding projects is a $1.5bn health investment that the city cannot squander, according to outgoing Darling Downs Health chair Mike Horan. Here’s why it’s a ‘once-in-200-year’ opportunity:
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It might help turn the Garden City into the “regional health capital of Australia”, but outgoing Darling Downs Health chair Mike Horan admits there was a point in time when he felt the new $1.3bn Toowoomba Hospital wouldn’t happen.
“I got worried when we finished the business case at the beginning of 2021, then we went into a bit of limbo and nothing much happened,” the former state MP told News Corp.
“I spoke to the deputy premier (now premier Steven Miles) who had been the health minister that I was concerned about timelines, and he said he’d get us an audience to the cabinet infrastructure committee, which is very powerful.”
That meeting is what got Toowoomba the funding for its new state-of-the-art hospital, which has already seen early works on a massive parcel of land in front Baillie Henderson Hospital at Cranley.
Mr Horan, who retires from the board after 12 years as chair on Sunday, said the 7.5-storey building serves as the linchpin for a major complex featuring the new hospital, reuse of Baillie Henderson for a variety of services, and a “high end” future for the existing CBD site.
“What regional city has ever had an opportunity like this?” he said.
“It only happens once every 200 years, where all of a sudden 185 acres that used to be on the outskirts of town and is now near the centre, can be used for a magnificent new hospital, but all the beautiful old heritage buildings are being used and reused.
“We’ve then got 28 acres in the CBD – what city officials would die for something like that?
“Add to that St Vincent’s and St Andrew’s, which are some of the best private hospitals in the state — when people want to here and they ask what the health sector is like, we can say it’s the regional health capital of Australia.”
Mr Horan also lifted the lid on some of the new features that, to varying degrees of certainty, could be part of the new Toowoomba Hospital precinct, which includes new specialist clinics, childcare, short-term accommodation, retail and tourism.
Vision for new site laid out
Mr Horan was quick to stress what he believes are the true figures around the level of investment into Toowoomba’s public health sector, and what it actually means in terms of service capacity.
“You’re getting $1.3bn for the hospital, $100m for a car park, we’ve just completed the $42m day surgery — the investment is closer to $1.5bn,” he said.
“All up now at the Toowoomba Hospital, with the main building, mental health and beds at Baillie Henderson, we have 501 beds.
“With the building of the new hospital, we’ll have 619 in total, so 118 additional beds across the city.
“Plus we’ll go from having seven theatres over there at the old site to 14 here.
“The new hospital will be the acute – that will be the emergency department, all the medical, surgical, cardiac, antenatal and maternity will happen there.”
While the new hospital is the most lucrative project, it is just one of numerous new buildings and refurbishments that create the “mini health city” at Baillie Henderson.
Mr Horan said a new 1800-space multistorey car park would be built across the road from the hospital (connected by a sky-walk), while DDH had also successfully applied for funding to build a new 36-student medical school as part of its partnerships with UniSQ and UQ.
There are also plans to convert an existing Baillie Henderson building, called Penrose, into a regional cancer treatment centre with beautiful views of Highfields and the Lockyer Valley.
“That will be the CBD of the hospital, the epicentre — it will be the hospital, multistorey car park with about 1800 parks, the medical school and the regional cancer centre,” Mr Horan said.
Mr Horan made it clear a significant number of buildings at the existing Baillie Henderson site, some of which dates back to Victorian era, would be included as part of the wider health delivery service.
This included the creation of new administration infrastructure (some of which was ongoing) and the future reuse of the Ridley Unit from a forensic psychiatric patient site to a new clinical purpose.
Mr Horan said he would love to see the introduction of a specialist eye hospital and sports medicine clinic to the precinct.
“I see the oval as staying and being used for recreation and also a sports medicine facility, for people with sports injuries or recovering from surgeries — it could be that the Queensland Institute of Sport look into it,” he said.
“The forensic psychiatric centre (to the north) is finishing up in approximately two years’ time and those patients will go to another place in southeast Queensland — we’ll use that for some clinical purpose then.
“That is prime real estate, already some clinicians are eyeing it off — (personally), I think we need a special eye hospital with its own parking.”
The upgrades and new builds will see the Baillie Henderson precinct host upwards of 3000 people every day, a similar population to its early days.
“There were 3000 people on this site once, because mental health in this state used to be Goodna, Baillie Henderson and Charters Towers,” Mr Horan said.
“There will be up to 5000 people on this site (once it’s all done).”
Mr Horan even has a suggested name for the hospital.
“It will probably get called the Toowoomba University Hospital - that’s what I think it should be called, but it hasn’t been decided,” he said.
Childcare, hotels and retail planned
Along with the new medical infrastructure at Baillie Henderson, Mr Horan said there was scope for a range of new services to complement the precinct.
The outgoing chair said DDH had already started to talking to childcare providers about building a new facility to support staff with young children.
“There are a couple of beautiful buildings (on the western side) and that’s where people with serious disabilities used to reside — the plan is they’ll be converted into childcare,” Mr Horan said.
Even more exciting are plans to allocate a massive parcel next door to the new hospital on the eastern side of the site for a new multistorey hotel.
“We also have a plan to get Mantra or Quest to build a high-rise hotel — that’s the vision,” Mr Horan said.
“We haven’t spoken to anyone yet, but we’ll speak to accommodation and hotel providers.
“Where there is a need for accommodation for visitors, visiting staff, a whole range of people, even those just going to carnival, it will be right there as you come into the city.”
Mr Horan also indicated the precinct would include new retail offerings for staff, including coffee shops or even a small supermarket.
“It can be a very holistic site, and part of the beating heart of Toowoomba,” he said.
“We’ll have thousands of people on this site, so we think there might be a need for an IGA or coffee shop.”
Speeding ahead, but at what price?
Of the four new hospitals announced in the 2022 state budget, the Toowoomba Hospital is far and away the closest to being finished.
Mr Horan said this was due to Darling Downs Health’s comprehensive $10m business case, which not only mapped out the path forward but allowed for the service to start preliminary works prior to handing it over to the state government.
“That business case has turned out to be gold because when all this money was announced in the 2022 budget, the government announced four big hospitals – Toowoomba, Coomera ($1.3bn each), Bundaberg ($1.2bn) and Redcliffe ($900m),” he said.
“We’re way ahead of everyone else, we started the year ago doing about $35m of early works.
“The business case had done all the geology testing and all the heritage stuff. It had been fully designed and it was comprehensive.”
The final price tag of $1.3bn is less than what DDH had asked for, with Mr Horan admitting the plan needed to be restructured to fit with that.
“$1.3bn will only build you so much,” he said.
“The original business case was to have everything in the one site — we got $1.3bn, which was the most (of any of the new hospitals), and we said we wouldn’t accept it unless we could keep the old site.
“I could sense we weren’t going to get more, and $1.3bn is a lot — no other city will have what we potentially will have.”
The comments come amid concerns from the medical community about doctors and specialists having to commute between two campuses.
Mr Horan said not only was that already happening now, the impacts would be minimised with the new site.
“There won’t be many who have to go to two campuses — most will work on the one campus,” he said.
“In town, there are doctors who work in multiple sites already.”
Medical research at CBD site
With the old site near the CBD securely in Darling Downs Health’s possession thanks to negotiations with the state government, Mr Horan said the organisation needed to “aim high” and lock a legacy tenant for the best use of the precinct.
He said attracting world-renowned medical groups like the Queensland Institute of Medical Research or the Mayo Clinic should be a priority.
“For the CBD, we should have a Toowoomba clinical institute and we should aim high, something like QIMR or CSL or maybe the Mayo Clinic in America,” he said.
“Those types of organisations, we should get them to Toowoomba for research and teaching or making vaccines.
“With the Mayo Clinic, the only continent in the world they’re not on is Australia.
“I would envisage that in the future, our future board chair and CEO and key staff, the mayor and local members of parliament all approach QIMR and say, ‘you’ve run out of land and space at Brisbane Royal, and we can provide some buildings and space’.”
For now, Mr Horan said the mental health wards currently would remain there (worth nearly 70 beds) as the only 24-hour service at Pechey Street, along with a range of 9am-5pm specialist services.
“Things like specialist outpatients, dental services, renal dialysis and the mental health services will stay there for the time being,” he said.
“There will be 12 mental health beds adjacent to the new ED, but where people stay will be at the fairly new facilities at the old site.”
Mr Horan suggested empty surgical theatres could be leased by the city’s private hospitals or universities as teaching tools.
Horan reflects on decorated career
Stepping down as the chair of Darling Downs Health this week also doubles as Mr Horan’s exit from more than 40 years of public life.
He came to prominance in Toowoomba as the general manager of the Royal Agricultural Society of Queensland, where he helped move the Toowoomba Showgrounds from its old location where the TAFE is now to the massive site out at Glenvale.
He then served more than 20 years as the member for Toowoomba South, becoming the Health Minister under the Borbidge Government and even the Opposition Leader in the early 2000s.
“I’ve been fortunate to have those roles (with RASQ), with the redevelopment of the showgrounds, I’ve been fortunate to have been the Minister for Health, where I did over 100 major projects, and totally revamped and changed the system of building hospitals and them getting the money from Treasury,” Mr Horan said.
“I’ve done 12 years and I feel very satisfied that this is all under way.
“I’m very confident of our board and I’m very confident the new chair that will be announced — it’s bittersweet.”
Mr Horan said his time leading people has taught him the value of building the right teams behind him.
“You need to have good people around you,” he said.
“I’m very good at vision and delegating, but you need good people that do all the hard yakka and all the detail that makes it happen.”
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