South East Queensland needs at least 20 new hospitals by 2046 to meet the demands of the growing population according to new research from the Property Council of Australia.
Property Council's Queensland Deputy Executive Director Allan McNeil said the Building a healthy region report showed the challenges of building the hospitals and health infrastructure to meet the region's growth outlined in the state government's Southeast Queensland Regional Plan.
"The results of this report are stark and show that delivering the hospitals, medical centres and specialist health services needed to support the region will be challenging," Mr McNeil said.
"The state government is investing in record health infrastructure, and while this is welcome, this report shows they cannot go it alone, with more than half of the hospitals needed to support the growth of the region expected to be delivered by the private sector."
The Building a healthy region report shows that meeting the demands of the 'Shaping SEQ' Regional Plan will require approximately:
- 11 new public hospitals
- 17 new private hospitals
- 27 additional day hospitals
- 11 additional residential mental health care facilities
- 70 to 80 new medical centres
These figures include projects that are planned but not yet delivered.
Mr McNeil said ongoing construction and affordability challenges meant delivering the health facilities would be difficult and would require collaboration across the public and private sector.
"Queensland Health's current pipeline of projects, combined with the private hospitals, housing and other infrastructure needed means there is simply not enough people to build it all," he said.
"This is seeing private health projects face increased construction costs as they compete with the public health sector for the same pool of construction workers needed to build the projects.
"Rather than competition across the public and private sector, we need a coordinated approach across all levels of government and industry if we are ever going to deliver the hospitals and health services our growing region needs.
"At the end of the day, private hospitals need to be financially viable to attract the necessary investment to build and operate them, so if they don't stack up there is a chance they won't be built, placing added pressure on the government to deliver the facilities."
Mr McNeil said the Building a healthy region report included a suite of recommendations to support delivery of health infrastructure.
"There needs to be greater collaboration between the public and private sector to create a state-wide health plan that supports the potential for joint planning, procurement and construction," he said.
"Queensland Health has adopted a partnership model to work with the private sector, which is a great start and exactly the sought of collaboration we need.
"However, we need this collaboration to extend to other areas, including a state-wide health housing plan developed jointly by the private and public sector to ensure the nurses and doctors needed to operate the new hospitals have somewhere to live.
