This week's Queensland budget promised to deliver billions of dollars for the Gold Coast's struggling health system, with the majority going toward hospitals.
But the spend has been criticised by a Gold Coast general practitioner who said the government was out of touch with current issues.
Included in the announcement was delivery of a new $1.3 billion hospital for the northern Gold Coast at Coomera.
It is expected to be completed by the second half of 2027.
Health Minister Y'vette D'Ath said it would provide 404 beds, emergency department treatment spaces and a satellite medical imaging department.
"The Coomera site, located on George Alexander Way, will take pressure off Gold Coast University Hospital and Robina Hospital and help to meet the needs of the growing Gold Coast population."
In addition to the Coomera hospital, Treasurer Cameron Dick also announced an 114-bed expansion for Robina Hospital and 20-bed transit lounge expansion.
The Gold Coast University Hospital will undergo a $72 million modular expansion and $139 million will go toward a satellite hospital at Tugun.
'Help is needed now'
Northern Gold Coast general practitioner Sonu Haikerwal said while the placement of a new hospital at Coomera was the perfect location, it would do nothing to address current shortages or help immediate health issues in the community.
She said the new hospital could cater to the corridor all the way up to Logan.
"But the most difficult thing is the supply and demand problem on the northern Gold Coast."
She said patients had complex chronic diseases, mental health issues and other lifestyle diseases.
"And there's lack of social support, so we just don’t have enough resources and enough hands on deck," she said.
She said the corridor was growing exponentially without resources and infrastructure to cope.
"It's going to cater to the end result, you know, the heart attacks, the strokes, the cancers that are increasing, but will it solve my problem day to day as a GP or running a practice? No, I don't think so."
Mudgeeraba MP and shadow health minister Ros Bates said the hospital should have been built seven years ago.
"We are 500 beds short right now in 2022," she said.
Bed release staggered
Ms D'Ath said 2,509 hospital beds would be delivered across Queensland over the next six years, with 289 of them over the next two.
"So we are dealing with the immediate demand, and planning for what we'll need for the next decade as well," Ms D'Ath said.
"And importantly that doesn’t include mental health beds, we're delivering another over 390 additional mental health beds on top of that."
She said more needed to be done to see allied health and federally-funded health care working together.
"Because a lot of our demand pressures we don’t control, so if people can't get to see a GP because they’re not available or can’t afford it, they’re going to end up in our emergency deparment," she said.
She said log jams with ambulances and emergency departments went to the heart of having bed capacity when people needed it for elective surgery or emergency care.
"So what we need to do is increase our bed capacity and increase it significantly," she said.
"But this is the biggest uplift this state has ever seen in building new beds in our hospitals."
