Building Jobs Boom: Victoria Pledges $5bn Hospital Precinct

Victoria’s Labor government has announced a $5-billion re-election commitment to develop the “biggest hospital project in Australia’s history”.

The project would include upgrades to the Royal Melbourne Hospital and Royal Women’s Hospital, and the construction of a new Arden medical precinct. 

The Andrews government has committed to an initial investment of up to $2.5 billion to kickstart the 12-year project to establish the Arden medical precinct, which will be the site of the new campuses for both hospitals. 

Premier Dan Andrews said the transformative project would enable an additional 10,500 elective procedures, capacity for 2500 more births and the critical care of 1000 more patients. 

“These hospitals belong to us all—they care for some of the sickest and most seriously hurt patients and Victorians are rightly proud of them, but they’re outgrowing their current sites,” Andrews said.

“We’re starting the biggest health infrastructure project in our nation’s history, growing our healthcare workforce and giving workers more training and research opportunities than ever before—proving that good governments can do more than one thing at a time.”

The redeveloped Parkville sites will focus on emergency, trauma and acute care while the new Arden campuses will be centres for elective surgery, outpatient treatment, clinical trails, rehabilitation and low-risk women’s healthcare services.

The initial investment would fund the first stage of works, delivering the first hospital tower in the Arden precinct, which would create more than 400 beds and treatment spaces.

The first stage was expected to create 7500 construction jobs, and around 12,500 more jobs in the supply chain for the project.

The next stages would rebuild and expand the hospital buildings at Parkville.

The Parkville and Arden medical precincts would also be linked by the Metro Tunnel from 2025 and connected to the Monash Medical Centre at Clayton.

Arden is a 44ha precinct around the new Arden Station. About 12ha of the site is slated for open space. Apartment towers up to 40 storeys will be allowed within the masterplanned area.

The state government has planned for 34,000 people working in the area by 2050, with Arden Station a two-minute train ride to the Parkville medical and research precinct when the new Metro Tunnel opens in 2024 or 2025.

The train to Melbourne Airport will stop at Arden when the line opens in 2029.