Designs released for the new Murdoch Women and Babies hospital
Health Infrastructure Minister John Carey is adamant that Murdoch’s new women’s and babies’ hospital will be delivered by 2029, but has left the door open to cost increases by revealing the design of the $1.8 billion facility.
Carey announced that the hospital, built by Italian builder WeBuild, will be 12 stories high, have 274 beds and include 2,500 new parking spaces in two separate parking lots.
Artist’s impression of the new Women and Babies hospital in Murdoch.
It will include inpatient facilities for obstetrics and gynecology patients, a neonatal unit for newborns, operating rooms, a family birth center and outpatient clinics.
Carey brushed aside questions about the cost of the project after a leaked status report in April suggested the facility would cost more than $1.9 billion, saying this was before the newly formed Major Infrastructure Delivery Office took over the project from WA Health.
But he said he couldn’t rule out cost increases in the future.
“These are always changing. I have to say this: I will never ignore this. As Minister of Housing, I know that cost increases are a fact of life,” he said.
“However, through [OMID] Since we oversee these types of projects, we of course focus very much on the cost but also on the delivery schedule.
“There were doubters; the opposition talked about this time frame. They said we couldn’t do it. Through our office of major projects, it seems we are taking a very rapid approach to delivering our hospital infrastructure.”
Excavation work is currently continuing and piling work will begin in November.
