Emergency care and elective surgery would no longer be provided under one roof at Victoria’s Royal Melbourne and Royal Women’s hospitals as part of an expansion touted by the Andrews government as the nation’s largest hospital infrastructure project.
The state government on Tuesday committed to creating a new medical precinct to deliver non-urgent treatment near the inner north Melbourne site of the Arden train station.
The Arden site would include a hospital campus of both the Royal Melbourne and Royal Women’s hospitals and focus on elective surgeries, outpatient treatments and rehabilitation.
The existing hospitals, in nearby Parkville, would then be upgraded to focus on emergency and acute care as part of the 12-year project.
Victoria’s premier, Daniel Andrews, acknowledged the large scale and complexity of the project but said it was vital to meet demand for the health sector.
“This is a big project,” he said. “It’s not an easy project. It’ll be complex and, yes, it takes time but it is absolutely the investment that we need to make now to set our state up for the future.”
Andrews stressed that both the Parkville and Arden medical precincts would be linked by the Metro Tunnel, which would create a two-minute trip between the hospitals, and used it to criticise the opposition’s plan to shelve the Suburban Rail Loop project to focus on health spending.
“There are some who think that this election is a choice between public transport and health,” the premier told reporters. “Well, they’re wrong. You have to do both.”
Pressed on how the new hospital project would add to the state’s debt – which is expected to reach a quarter of Victoria’s economy by 2025-26 – Andrews said it was a question of whether Victoria could afford to not build the project.
But the opposition treasurer spokesman, David Davis, said the announcement would mean new taxes on Victorian households and businesses. Davis said he would not guarantee the new campuses would be built if the Coalition was elected in November due to concerns about split campuses.
The government has estimated the entire 12-year project would cost between $5bn to $6bn and create more than 1,800 additional beds and treatment places. Construction would begin in 2025 and stage one would be completed in 2031 and stages two and three by 2034.
It would make an initial investment of between $2bn and $2.5bn to fund the first hospital tower in the Arden precinct, resulting in more than 400 beds. A second hospital tower would follow in coming years.
The other stages would rebuild and expand the Royal Melbourne Hospital and Royal Women’s Hospital in Parkville by demolishing the oldest building and constructing new buildings. Andrews said the government would welcome additional funding from the commonwealth for the infrastructure project.
They estimate the project would create 10,500 additional elective surgery procedures at the Royal Melbourne hospital Arden campus and enable 1,000 more patients to receive critical care across both campuses. The refurbishment of the Royal Women’s hospital would allow for 2,500 more births.
Meanwhile, Victoria’s opposition leader, Matthew Guy, on Tuesday proposed $175m in funding for Catholic and independent schools if he wins the state election in November.
The yearly funding would finance infrastructure upgrades, better facilities and resources.
“Around 360,000 kids attend a Catholic or independent school around our state,” Guy said. “Some of those schools particularly in regional Victoria really, really need a lot of government support because they are particularly in lower socio-economic areas.”
The Victorian Greens also announced plans on Tuesday for a $15,000 “eco-bonus” for drivers to switch to electric cars.
Additional subsidy payments of about $3,000 would be made to electric car owners for bi-directional chargers, enabling them to charge their vehicle through solar panels in an effort to drive down greenhouse gas emissions.
Under the Greens’ plan, the sale of petrol cars would be banned from 2030 and Labor’s electric vehicle tax would also be scrapped.
Australian Associated Press contributed to this report
