The initial decision on an unsolicited proposal for a co-located private hospital at the LGH could be expected as early as this month.
Subscribe now for unlimited access.
$0/
(min cost $0)
or signup to continue reading
An Office of the Coordinator-General spokesman said the timeframe for assessing unsolicited bids varied “according to the complexity and completeness of the proposal, the analysis required and the assessment schedule”.
“That said, six to eight weeks for the stage one process might typically be expected,” he said.
Calvary submitted a proposal for a multi-level private hospital co-located with the Launceston General Hospital in December.
The private hospital’s medical advisory committee chair, Dr David Penn, said the new build would replace St Vincent’s and St Luke’s hospitals.
“It’s going to have a state-of-the-art operating suite, a palliative care unit, a rehabilitation unit, and medical facilities,” he said.
“It’s also going to be combined with a fancy endoscopy suite, which we already opened last year and got running, but the plan is to have a full endoscopy suite and also to extend the cardiac services.
“The plan on the ground floor is to have a pharmacy, potentially an extended hours health clinic as well, and that will help co-service the emergency department. The beauty is that, at the times when the LGH is overflowing, it has the opportunity to provide beds from the private.
“The advantages of [co-location] are that we can share resources. For example, it’s hard to have two independent intensive care units in town, so if we have a co-located hospital, which had a corridor connecting the two buildings, it means that we can share the high dependency and ICU facilities.”
Dr Penn said a co-located public-private set up could help attract more specialists to the region.
“We’re always in need of specialists and surgeons here. One of the problems is our theatre space in private – our hospital space, is quite restricted, so in having a new hospital, we’re going to make it a more attractive centre to set up your medical career in the North of Tasmania.”
The medical community has been lobbying both the Liberals and Labor for more than 20 years for a co-located hospital at the LGH.
“[St Luke’s and St Vincent’s] are both old buildings and they’re starting to crumble and we’ve got to make a decision whether we spend a heap of money doing up old buildings or we build a new hospital,” Dr Penn said.
“It’s going to be far more beneficial to the community and to the LGH if we have one new private hospital co-located with the public one.”
On Thursday, Opposition Leader Rebecca White pledged $250,000 toward a health precinct masterplan at the LGH, and to call for expressions of interest to build a private hospital at the site. She said a Labor majority government would contribute public land for the hospital and the successful bidder would cover the cost of the build.
The Australian Medical Association and Launceston business community welcomed the plan, but some doctors said they wanted the unsolicited proposal to be given proper consideration.
Health Minister Michael Ferguson said the state government would not hand over public land to a private company, but that the proposal submitted by Calvary would be considered.
If the unsolicited proposal gets through the first stage, the next step will be a Memorandum of Understanding.
