Demolition work has begun on two buildings at the Canberra Hospital campus to make way for a new pathology and clinical services facility.
The work forms part of the ACT government's 20-year Canberra Hospital Master Plan, which aims to deliver more modern and expansive services to the Woden site.
Construction company Multiplex will do the demolition work for buildings 23 and 6, which are being internally stripped.
Health Minister Rachel Stephen-Smith said the new building was an early priority of the master plan.
"Tens of thousands of people work, receive care, and visit the Canberra Hospital every year," she said.
"The Master Plan will ensure the campus that is accessible, welcoming and better connected."
Ms Stephen-Smith said the new pathology building will be connected to the Critical Services Building, which is due to open later this year.
"We decided that we really needed to get that demolition done sooner rather than later so that the demolition wasn't occurring at the same time that people were moving into the Critical Services Building and starting to use that facility," she told the ABC.
Demolition work is expected to take several months and be completed in the third quarter of the year.
Ms Stephen-Smith said the government was also progressing plans for the new northside hospital and community based health centres.
Questioned over funding for new hospital facilities in the ACT, Ms Stephen-Smith told the ABC she didn't think the government had "any choice" when it came to redeveloping the building.
"We're in a circumstance ... where a lot of our major infrastructure, whether it's schools, hospitals, it was built in mid last century, and a lot of it is coming to the end of life at a very similar time," she said.
"Canberra Hospital and North Canberra Hospital are quite a similar age. And so a lot of that infrastructure is needing to be renewed at around the same time.
"But investing a billion dollars in a new hospital on the north side that is then going to be there for the next 50 years is a critical investment for Canberrans. And I don't think Canberrans are going to say, well, we shouldn't do it because we'll be creating a debt for the next generation."
