By Matthew Sims
The state government has celebrated the new Footscray Hospital project reaching another milestone, with the first three buildings reaching their maximum height and achieving structural completion.
Footscray MP Katie Hall joined Premier Daniel Andrews, Health Infrastructure Minister Mary-Anne Thomas and Victoria University representatives at the site on Thursday, February 9 to celebrate the achievement of the milestone.
The milestone also represented the halfway point on the project, which is being delivered via a $1.5 billion commitment through the state government’s Victoria’s Big Build initiative.
Located on the corner of Ballarat Road and Geelong Road, the Western Health hospital’s main 10-storey building would include about 500 beds, with the ability to treat about 15,000 patients and see 20,000 people at the emergency department each year, as well as a five-storey sub-acute-care building scheduled for completion in mid to late 2024.
One of the three structurally completed buildings would house a new five-storey 5000-square-metre education and research centre for nurse training.
Victoria University (VU) would occupy the building for health and medicine training, as well as research and learning across a range of areas such as nursing and midwifery, physiotherapy, speech pathology, dietetics, biomedicine and psychology, with the building connected to Victoria University’s Footscray Park campus via a public-use pedestrian footbridge across Ballarat Road.
A commercial building on Tiernan Street will house a health and medical precinct across five storeys, as well as a childcare facility and retail spaces.
VU chancellor Steve Bracks said the relationship between VU and the new hospital would be integral to the future growth of Melbourne’s western suburbs.
“Through the VU education and research centre … we will equip the next generation workforce and drive research that will shape the future of Melbourne’s west.
Ms Hall said the project was the Labor government’s largest health infrastructure project to date and joined a number of significant investments across the west.
