Care is coming: Works on women’s and children’s hospital to start this year

THE first works on Geelong’s women’s and children’s hospital are expected to start later this year.

Barwon Women’s and Children’s (BWC) will be built within the University Hospital Geelong precinct in Ryrie Street, adding a new tower block and refurbishing the Bellerine Centre, which is presently home to Barwon Health’s maternity services and specialist outpatient clinics.

Premier Daniel Andrews visited University Hospital Geelong on Friday last week to tour the children’s ward and give an update on the BWC project, which will now have a budget of at least half a billion dollars, comprising $450 million from the Victorian government (including $350 million in the 2022/23 State Budget) and $50 million from the federal government.

“This is following detailed planning, a really intense process of sitting down with the doctors, nurses, midwives, all of the care team to do the detailed planning to work out exactly what would be needed, ‘would that be enough money?’,” Mr Andrews said.

“And the answer, of course, was that we should do more and we should do better. We should go bigger than the original plan. So we’re very proud in the recent budget to top that up.

“This is a massive project, one of the biggest health projects in regional Australia, not just regional Victoria.

“I can’t give you a precise number because we’ve got to go through tender processes, but it will be at least $500 million.

“Early works begin very soon. Some older buildings will be taken down, so fences will go up and the demolition work will begin very soon, and then construction will begin in earnest.”

BWC will include a new children’s inpatient unit, new neonatal and parent care unit, specialist (outpatient) clinics, four new operating theatres, and a new main entrance to University Hospital Geelong.

The project will also create more maternity inpatient beds, more paediatric multi-day/same day inpatient beds. more special care nursery cots, more birth suites and expanded paediatric and maternity outpatient facilities.

Mr Andrews said BWC would offer 173 points of care.

“So that’s more beds, more wards, more space to treat mums and bubs, birthing suites, induction suites, surgery – the whole range of services – and of course, very importantly, 26 special care nursery beds so that our littlest Victorians, those newly arrived Victorians, those who might need that special care … those families won’t have to go to Melbourne.

“They won’t have to go to another hospital in another community a long way away. They’ll be able to get the care that they need in the community that they’ve helped to build in the region that they’re proudly part of.”

The Victorian government says designs for BWC are under way and are on track to be released in late 2022.

The project is expected to support about 1,500 direct and indirect jobs at peak construction.

Geelong MP Christine Couzens, Bellarine MP Lisa Neville, South Barwon MP Darren Cheeseman and Lara MP John Eren accompanied Mr Andrews on his tour of the hospital.