Health Minister hits pause button on $1.3b northern hospital after review found cost blowouts
Fourteen days after receiving a scathing report saying the Coomera Hospital project would be over-budget and overdue it was quiet on site, but the minister for health said it doesn’t mean work has stopped.
Gold Coast
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Fourteen days after receiving a scathing report saying the Coomera Hospital project would be over-budget and overdue it was quiet on site, but the minister for health said it doesn’t mean work has stopped.
Health and Ambulance services minister, Tim Nicholls, stood on the site armed with a “hospital rescue plan” on Thursday, which he says outlines why it was necessary to take the plan back to the drawing board more than eight months after the first concrete slabs were poured.
“Obviously the work on this site will continue and there are many months of work left while we prepare the site ... while that’s occurring, we are going to go through the planning process,” Mr Nicholls said.
“Once we’ve got that planning process underway, we will then be in a position to give people a realistic time frame.”
The “rescue plan” was brought into play after a scathing review by specialist Sam Sangster found the project was set to be over-budget, overdue and insufficient.
The original plan was for a 404-bed hospital due to be complete by September 2027, but the review found the project was at least six months overdue, had a cost blow-out of $1.1 billion, and needed to be at least 600 beds.
“There are already workers on site, and we want to make sure they have continuity,” Mr Nicholls said.
“The works that they are doing will not be works that will be wasted, they will be works that will be able to be built on an expanded on.”
Although he wasn’t able to give a time frame for completion, Mr Nicholls said Gold Coast hospitals are taking other steps which will mitigate ambulance ramping in the meantime.
“We’re not resting on our laurels, we are delivering on the other things that are necessary to make sure we can address ambulance ramping and reach that 30 per cent target by 2028,” he said.
TOO SMALL, OVER BUDGET AND LATE - REPORT’S DAMNING FINDINGS
A scathing report has claimed the under-construction and much-needed Coomera Hospital is too small, will be almost a billion dollars over budget and delayed by six months.
The damning conclusions, in a review of the former Labor government’s $9.8bn health infrastructure plan by specialist Sam Sangster, has prompted a major rethink of the critical project.
A 404-overnight bed hospital at Coomera started by the former Labor Government was originally costed at $1.3 billion with the build due to be finished in September 2027.
But the Capacity Expansion Program independent Report, sought by the new Crisafulli Government, found costs have blown out to $2.2 billion with the earliest completion of Coomera to be in March 2028.
The current state of it was “significantly challenged in scope, program and price”, it said.
The report also stated there was “no provision for community health, mental health or teaching space”, and pointed to potential traffic problems around the facility, saying “traffic and logistics” were “misaligned with community needs”.
It recommended the project be paused while a “swift review” of health requirements on the Gold Coast was undertaken, although it said stage one site works “should continue”.
Following publication of the report’s findings the Crisafulli Government have reassured the beds at the hospital would be increased to at least 600 – a boost of 200. However it is unable to give a timeline for construction.
A 116-bed expansion planned at Robina Hospital – aimed to provide back-up bed stock in the interim – will now be scrapped.
Robina was to include six theatres and other infrastructure, all to be built ahead of Coomera.
Those new facilities are “yet to be agreed” and “construction some way off commencing”.
The State Government said experts from the Gold Coast Health Service identified the greatest priority for the region was “increasing capacity and bolstering services at the Coomera site” rather than fragmenting facilities across other hospitals.
Health Minister Tim Nicholls said the Crisafulli Government would deliver 600 new overnight beds at Coomera but declined to give a timeline for the project.
“That’s 200 more beds than Labor at the fast-growing northern Gold Coast region,” Mr Nicholls said.
“The Robina lease arrangement for 114 beds was supposed to be a solution that met immediate demand pressures on the Gold Coast.
“Despite three years of planning, Labor never delivered these beds. The first contract was torn up and the current negotiations and leases are commercially unviable and do not represent a long-term solution.”
Mr Nicholls said planning would take about six months and the Government would have a better understanding on the new program and budget “once the proper work is done”.
“Ceasing negotiations at Robina will be mitigated through the increased bed capacity in Coomera to 600 beds in line with Hospital and Health Service planning, which will deliver 86 more beds in total for the Gold Coast,” he said.
Review author Mr Sangster said Queensland public hospital projects awaiting construction – of which Coomera is the most prominent – were “undeliverable” in their current form.
“In their current form, they don’t fit in those budgets by any measure,” he told a Major Contractors Association breakfast on Wednesday morning.
“Timelines are also substantially longer on each of those projects and are beyond the announced days and probably most worrying is many of them are not clinically fit for the services that they’re trying to actually feed.”
Opposition health spokesperson Mark Bailey said the Crisafulli Government was failing to deliver on an election promise to provide 2200 hospital beds to Queenslanders by 2028.
“What we have seen from them is a pause on construction by the Crisafulli Government, and they are not committing to their election promise, they are breaking their election promise to Queenslanders,” he said.
Mr Bailey called for the release of the draft report to see if it was consistent with the final report because the Government had a track record for “juicing up the figures” – referring to future construction costs.
The Queensland Nurses and Midwives’ Union (QNMU) said it was seeking assurances Gold Coasters would get their required care and the city’s construction workers could work safely.
QNMU Secretary Sarah Beaman said Government pressure to reduce costs would further delay Queensland Health expansion projects and could put workers at risk.
“We are seeking answers regarding how the state government will risk mitigate further delays to ensure the safety of the community, who need additional care, and the job security of construction workers whose jobs will be affected by the project delay,” Ms Beaman said.
Housing Minister Sam O’Connor said the LNP government had “never considered” scrapping the Coomera hospital because of budget blowouts.
“We have long supported that hospital. We have supported it longer than the former Government did,” he said.
Mr O’Connor said he believed the findings from the review were “good news”.
“It’s going to be an exceptional facility,” he said.
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Originally published as Health Minister hits pause button on $1.3b northern hospital after review found cost blowouts
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