Queensland's hospital expansion plan will be overhauled, with the state government promising to deliver 2,600 new beds. But the price tag and delivery date remains unknown. It follows a report into the previous Labor government's expansion proposal labelled "deeply flawed".
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00:00The plan to take Queensland's health system off life support unveiled.
00:07It's a task that presents enormous challenges.
00:10The government will deliver 2,600 new hospital beds across the state,
00:15400 more than its Labor predecessors proposed.
00:19The hospital program in its current form is not and never was going to be able to be delivered by 2028.
00:28The latest advice in September of last year was that they were deliverable by 2028.
00:34The cost or completion date for the expansion is yet to be revealed.
00:38Mr Nicholls flew to Bundaberg to inspect construction of its new hospital and talk up the new plan.
00:44But is the government breaking a pre-election promise?
00:48David Christofoli committed to 2,200 beds by 2028.
00:52I've heard that said but I've checked and that commitment has not been made.
00:57Do you have a number?
00:59Certainly we have matched the Labor government's promise for beds.
01:04So you'll match it but not exceed it?
01:06Certainly match it.
01:08A scathing review by health infrastructure official Sam Sangster found Labor's program had blown out by $7 billion to $17 billion.
01:19He labelled it deeply flawed with the planning of projects taking six weeks rather than the usual six months.
01:26My view would be plan slowly, execute fast would have been a better approach.
01:31The report found there were grossly inflated prices for the hospital car park program.
01:36One hospital car space would have cost up to $250,000, six times the market average of up to $60,000.
01:46Changes made by the government include almost 200 additional beds for the Gold Coast's new hospital at Coomera, taking it to 600 beds.
01:55And a plan to operate both the new and old Toowoomba hospitals has been scrapped with all services to be transferred to the new facility.
02:03Timelines for the government's health plan are expected by the end of the year.
02:07the end of the year.