Community feedback round closes for new Toowoomba Hospital

As work continues on the new Toowoomba Hospital at Baillie Henderson, and a round of community feedback ends, a leading doctor weighs in with recommendations, saying the new facility will “hardly be a hospital”.

Artist impressions of the new $1.3 billion hospital which will include 118 additional beds, extending capacity for the Darling Downs region.

A leading Toowoomba doctor has called for a “proper hospital”, as a round of community feedback closes for Toowoomba’s new $1.3bn hospital.

Toowoomba and Darling Downs Local Medical Association president Dr Peter Hopson weighed in on the new Toowoomba hospital slated to be completed in 2027, and said the region needs a “$3bn proper hospital” with an additional 500 beds.

The billion dollar hospital was first proposed in 2018 and in 2023 the Queensland Government committed $50 million to the construction of the project, with John Holland contracted for the detailed design of the hospital for the first stage before the main construction works begin and will bring an additional 118 beds to the region.

Queensland Health Minister Yvette D'Ath (left) with Darling Downs Health Board chairman Mike Horan and Darling Downs Health chief executive Annette Scott near the site of the new Toowoomba Hospital at the Baillie Henderson campus, Tuesday, February 28, 2023. Picture: Kevin Farmer

The new hospital is being built on the 75-hectacre Baillie Henderson Hospital first built in 1890 as an asylum, and now functions as a hospital with an array of services from rehabilitation to psychology, nutrition and occupational therapy, with inpatient and outpatient services.

The site has several heritage-listed buildings.

According to Darling Downs Health Services website the vision of the campus will be an “unrivalled health and knowledge precinct experience” with “ multidisciplinary health services, research, education, commercial, and community recreation spaces”.

The new Toowoomba Hospital will create a two campus model, with the current Base Hospital 7km away at Pechey St and what medical services would remain are still being decided.

Dr Hopson said this, however, will create an “organisational joke” dividing and “divorcing” the medical services.

“It should be all in or forget about it,” he said.

Toowoomba and Darling Downs Local Medical Association president Dr Peter Hopson weighed in on the 118 bed Toowoomba hospital slated to be completed in 2027, and said that the region needs a “$3bn proper hospital” with an additional 500 beds.

There is “no overall game plan” for the hospital and health services in the region, which needs a “$3bn proper hospital with 500 beds”, he said.

“There’s one heritage-listed building worth keeping at Baillie Henderson,” he said.

He suggested simply bulldozing the property and building a full hospital with emergency, theatre, scans and MRI.

Dr Hopson said the Base was an “antiquated building” which did not have the infrastructure to deal with new technology and difficult to keep clean.

“It’s a 20 cent solution to a $2 problem,” Dr Hopson said.

While this round of community consultation has closed, the Darling Downs Health Service is open to feedback “contributing to a design that will support improved care, patient outcomes and staff experience,” a DDHS spokesperson said.

They said the planning of what services will be available at the new hospital is ongoing, and the completion of the Hospital is expected in the second half of 2027.