New hospital hub prescribes Coast’s lifestyle to lure top medicos

Courier Mail, 7 August, 2011
by Peter Hall

The Sunshine Coast’s lifestyle will be used to lure the cream of Australia’s medical staff to a new regional health hub at Kawana.Site preparation works are about to begin on a 200-bed private hospital, which will also offer 110 public beds funded by the State Government.

This will be completed in 2013, with construction of the adjoining $2 billion Sunshine Coast University Hospital hot on its heels, along with a $61 million Skills, Academic and Research Centre.

The University Hospital will be the largest hospital building project in the country when construction begins early in 2013 and it is scheduled to open in 2016 with 450 beds. This number will increase to 738 beds by 2021. largest private hospital operator, Ramsay Health Care, will build and operate the private hospital and a spokeswoman said recruitment was being local at.

It was anticipated most staff would come from Australia, with the area’s work-life balance a major drawcard. “The Sunshine Coast is such a great place, there will be plenty of doctors wanting to move,” she said.

The private hospital will offer medical and surgical services including orthopaedics, urology, ear nose and throat, general surgery, oncology and day chemotherapy. Ramsay’s design-build team comprises construction firm John Holland and architects Phillips Smith Conwell, with Akalan Projects as the project managers. All firms  have significant  experience in major hospital developments.

The multi-storey private hospital will have six state-of-the art operating theatres, a procedural suite and day surgery centre and will offer a comprehensive range of diagnostic services including pathology and radiology.

A 1000sq m medical consulting suite complex also will be built on the campus which Ramsay Health Care believes will attract more specialists to the area.

Up to 300 construction jobs are expected to be created and about 700 staff will be employed at the private hospital, which is yet to be named.

The public hospital will employ up to 3500 people and the private up to 1000 people. Total construction jobs for both projects will be about 2300.

Both hospitals and the training centre will be built on a 20ha site on the corner of Lake Kawana Boulevard and Kawana Way, where road widening works have begun.