Toowoomba Hospital: $1.3bn project to stop work within weeks as Labor, LNP trade barbs over Sangster report

Work on Toowoomba’s new $1.3bn hospital might stop within weeks, as both parties trade barbs over the findings of a highly-anticipated review into major health projects.

Labor has fired back at allegations by the LNP it didn’t properly cost the new $1.3bn Toowoomba Hospital while in government, as the deadline approaches until funding dries up on the active work site in the city’s northern suburbs.

Labor’s treasury spokeswoman Shannon Fentiman launched an extraordinary rebuke at health minister Tim Nicholls, after he offered a glimpse last week at the highly-anticipated review by infrastructure specialist Sam Sangster of the hospital expansion program that was greenlit under Labor.

Workers are laying the foundations of the new $1.3 billion Toowoomba Hospital at the Baillie Henderson campus in Cranley. About 3000 people will be employed during construction. September 25, 2024.

The review, which won’t be released until next week, reportedly argues the current plan of keeping open two floors of the old hospital near the Toowoomba CBD would cost an extra $300 to $400 million a year.

Queensland Labor's treasury spokeswoman Shannon Fentiman speaks outside the new Toowoomba Hospital site at Baillie Henderson.

The report also concludes key requirements like an electronic medical records system had not be costed or scoped by the previous government.

Speaking outside the worksite on Wednesday, Ms Fentiman described the inclusion of ongoing maintenance costs for a new build as “creative accounting” by Mr Nicholls.

“I know Tim Nicholls has said that somehow this project has now blown out from 1.3 billion to 1.9 billion but that involved, I would say, creative accounting,” he said.

“Nowhere in the world does anyone include the cost of maintenance for a project in the life of the project, in the cost of building the project – it doesn’t make sense.

“If families here in Toowoomba are building a new house, the builder doesn’t invoice them for 20 years of maintenance for the house.”

Ms Fentiman said she believed the state government was “setting the stage for cuts” to the project, something the LNP rebuked sharply.

Minister for Health and Ambulance Services Minister for Health and Ambulance Services Tim Nicholls. Picture David Clark

“Labor’s discredited ‘solution’ for Toowoomba resulted in a revised cost estimate for just for the new hospital of $1.98bn, a $680m blowout from their allocated budget of $1.3bn,” Mr Nicholls’ office said.

“This did not include maintenance costs for ongoing operation of the old campus their plan kept for patient services.

“According to the 2023 Project Validation Report Labor chose to ignore, their plan to continue operating the current outdated hospital, duplicating expensive operating costs and creating significant clinical servicing complications, would have added between $300m to $400m in annual operating costs.”

Mr Nicholls’ office did not answer why it had chosen to include maintenance costs for a capital works project.

The political debacle over the new build at Baillie Henderson Hospital in Cranley comes as sources revealed the early construction package will be finished within weeks, with lead contractor John Holland still unable to lodge a tender for the next tranche of works.

It is understand workers may be laid off by as early as the end of May.

The uncertainty around the project means the original completion year of 2027 is now unlikely, with some insiders expecting it to blow out by at least 12 months.