Cook Government issues $1.8 billion tender for Women and Babies Hospital and other maternity services

An almost $2 billion contract is up for grabs to build the Women and Babies Hospital at Fiona Stanley, with the Health Minister confident a partner will be secured despite the Liberals promising to scrap it. The $1.8b expression of interest opened Thursday seeking managing contractors to design and build the hospital — as well as a maternity ward and gynaecology at Osborne Park and neonatal services at Perth Children’s Hospital. The Government last year made the shock decision to build the hospital at Fiona Stanley rather than at QEII next to PCH. Health Minister Amber-Jade Sanderson said the Nedlands site was too constrained, would require buildings to be demolished and would cause huge disruptions to patients at Sir Charles Gairdner and PCH. Many clinicians lashed the decision made without consultation and have warned that the 20km distance between PCH and a maternity hospital in Murdoch would put the lives of babies in complicated births at risk. WA Liberal leader Libby Mettam has promised to reverse the decision and keep the project at QEII if she wins the 2025 election. Asked if political uncertainty around the project would make potential tenderers apprehensive, Ms Sanderson replied she was “very confident”. “Libby Mettam needs to explain which buildings she’s going to demolish (at QEII), which services she’s going to cancel, where she’s going to put that tertiary hospital and how she’s going to continue outpatients and elective surgery for those patients at Sir Charles Gairdner Hospital,” the minister said. “In terms of our partners in Government and contractors, look, I’m very confident. “This is a really exciting project for construction. We expect to attract State-based, national and international proponents for this project.” Ms Mettam said the Government should wait to award the tender until after the election. “The only location for a world class hospital is the QEII site in Nedlands, trilocated alongside an adult tertiary hospital and children’s hospital,” she said. “It is inexcusable that the Cook Labor Government are forging ahead on a plan which will put baby’s and mother’s lives at risk.” Ms Sanderson was also confident despite construction sector pressures, which in the case of the Geraldton Health Campus redevelopment required the State to go through two EOI processes after the first yielded no bids. The minister said the tender was for all three projects — at Murdoch, PCH and Osborne Park — because they were “integrated”. The minister said the strategy of bringing a partner on in the design stage was “slightly different” and earlier than usual for WA. “All of the early preparation works previously would have been done by Government and then we would go to a tender process — and then that design work and value engineering would occur with the contractor,” Ms Sanderson said. “We’re actually moving that forward. It’s a model that they use more in the National Health Service in the UK when they’re developing large infrastructure. “We bring the partner in early and we work with them on those solutions on-site because they have the expertise.” The EOI closes on March 12. Ms Sanderson said timeframes for when construction on the maternity hospital would start would be negotiated with the successful tenderer. The tender process began as the Government announced Carli Beange as the first publicly employed and credentialed midwife in WA. She will work at the midwifery birth centre at Bentley Hospital — which is now under construction. Ms Beange will be part of a new model of care that will give women the option of being cared for by the same midwife throughout their pregnancy. “The development of the model of care here at Bentley will allow midwives to work to their full scope of practice, providing women with continuity of care through the pregnancy, birth and early parenting journey,” she said.