The Chronicle

Doctor slams design of new city hospital

- Christine Schindler

A leading Toowoomba doctor has called for a “proper” hospital, as a round of community feedback closes for Toowoomba’s new $1.3bn hospital.

Toowoomba and Darling Downs Local Medical Associatio­n president Dr Peter Hopson weighed in on the 118 bed hospital slated to be completed in 2027, and said the region needed a “$3bn proper hospital” with an additional 500 beds.

The billion-dollar hospital was first proposed in 2018, and in 2023 the Queensland Government committed $50 million to the constructi­on of the project, with John Holland contracted for the detailed design of the hospital for the first stage before the main constructi­on works begin.

The new hospital is being built on the grounds of the 75hectacre Baillie Henderson Hospital, first built in 1890 as an asylum, and now functionin­g as a hospital with an array of services from rehabilita­tion to psychology, nutrition and occupation­al therapy.

According to the Darling Downs Health Services website, the vision of the campus will be an “unrivalled health and knowledge precinct experience” with “multidisci­plinary health services, research, education, commercial, and community recreation spaces”.

The new Toowoomba Hospital will create a two campus model, with the current hospital 7km away at Pechey St.

Dr Hopson said this would create an “organisati­onal joke” dividing and “divorcing” the medical services.

“It should be all in or forget about it,” he said.

There was “no overall game plan” for the hospital and health services in the region, which needed a “$3bn proper hospital with 500 beds”, he said.

“There’s one heritage-listed building worth keeping at Baillie Henderson,” Dr Hopson said.

He suggested simply bulldozing the property and building a full hospital with emergency, theatre, scans and MRI.

Dr Hopson said the existing hospital was an “antiquated building” which did not have the infrastruc­ture to deal with new technology and was difficult to keep clean.

“It’s a 20 cent solution to a $2 problem,” Dr Hopson said.

While this round of community consultati­on has closed, the Darling Downs Health Service is open to feedback “contributi­ng to a design that will support improved care, patient outcomes and staff experience,” a DDHS spokespers­on said.

The spokespers­on said the planning of what services would be available at the new hospital was ongoing.

They also said that the completion of the new hospital was expected in the second half of 2027.

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