Question Time

New Mount Barker Hospital

The Hon. D.R. CREGAN (Kavel) (14:25): My question is to the Minister for Health and Wellbeing. Can the minister please update the house on construction works towards a new Mount Barker hospital?

The Hon. C.J. PICTON (Kaurna—Minister for Health and Wellbeing) (14:25): I thank the member for Kavel for his very good question and his incredible passion and interest in delivering improved health services for people of the Hills and his electorate, in particular Mount Barker, which is an area we know has been growing at an extraordinary rate over previous decades and particularly in previous years.

It has had a hospital effectively the same size over that period of time with the same number of beds. When there were just a few thousand people many decades ago living in Mount Barker, they had 34 beds. Twenty years ago when there were about 20,000 people living in Mount Barker, there were 34 beds. Now when there are over 40,000 people living in Mount Barker, there are still only 34 beds. So that is obviously a situation that needs to change. This government was elected to make sure that one of our key commitments was to deliver a new Mount Barker hospital to make sure that we could expand their capacity and, in particular, to expand the number of beds, not just increasing them by a marginal amount but tripling the number of beds, from 34 beds up to 102 beds, at that hospital.

I am glad to inform the house that construction on that project, the early works, is underway now. It is a $320.8 million project, and there is significant progress that has been made already. In the past few weeks, the project team in particular have been busy at work in relocating a number of the community health services, including allied health, child and development health and community nursing, into new refurbished accommodation elsewhere in the Mount Barker township. We thank all of those staff for the work that they have done in terms of doing that.

We also thank patients and families who will be going to appointments in other places. The reason why that is necessary, of course, is that we need to start demolition of those existing parts of the hospital. That demolition is expected to start within the next few weeks. That demolition will then enable the enabling works for the site—all of the infrastructure that needs to be brought in but then, of course, the construction of the main additional building of the hospital.

The other early works that are continuing at the moment are in relation to the car parking. The first part of the new car park is in the process of being finalised and expected to be open soon. This is, of course, prior to the construction of the multideck car park, which is expected to commence around the middle of this year and to be complete around the middle of next year as well. Through the combination of those works, car parking onsite will increase up to a total capacity of 654 spaces, so a big increase on the current car parking available there.

The main works of the hospital are expected to start construction towards the end of this year, with the anticipated completion of that new clinical services building by the end of 2027. Of course, that new building will not just have an additional number of beds. It will provide for maternity services, paediatric care, palliative care and rehabilitation. Critically, mental health care is provided as well with 12 additional mental health beds. There are not currently any mental health beds in the Mount Barker hospital or anywhere through the Adelaide Hills at the moment, so this will be the first time the Adelaide Hills will be able to provide mental health inpatient care within its own catchment without people having to come to the city.

All of this will be complemented by contemporary operating theatres, chemotherapy and renal dialysis services onsite as well. This is an expansion of the hospital which sets us up for the long term to meet that growth for the Mount Barker district. I want to thank again the member for Kavel for his incredible advocacy in making this project a reality.