On 3 March in 1877, a group of locals decided to establish Cairns’ first hospital, with the nearest health facility at the time located in Cooktown, 330km away.
The site they chose for the then district hospital was on the Esplanade for reasons entirely practical to the era: it was close to early homes and the fledgling port, serving the young town of Cairns.
Nearly 150 years later, Cairns Hospital has remained on that site, slowly growing block-by-block, filling its relatively small footprint.
As the region’s population has soared, the hospital’s physical growth has become increasingly constrained.
Until now.
The Queensland Government recently announced it would be investing more than $1 billion in making the first stage of our 30-year Cairns Hospital Master Plan a reality, acknowledging that refurbishing our existing infrastructure is not enough to meet future demand.
Through the Queensland Government, we will acquire land surrounding the hospital and construct three new buildings to allow us to expand.
This will include a new Innovation and Surgical Centre; a new dedicated staff multi-storey carpark; and a health management hub.
The money being spent to deliver on this master plan is the largest single investment the government has ever poured into any infrastructure in the history of Cairns.
One question many people have asked, however, is why aren’t we spending all this money south of Cairns on a new hospital on a greenfield site – similar to what Townsville did three decades ago?
The answer is simply - as they say in real estate – ‘location, location, location.’
Cairns has completely different geography to Townsville, and other similarly sized regional cities.
The current site of Cairns Hospital is easily accessible by a majority of our region’s population, by road, sea and air. The latter is particularly important. We are the referral hospital not just for Cairns, but for patients as far away as the Torres Strait. Occasionally even further.
Our patients and their families require close proximity to the airport, accommodation and amenities – particularly in emergency situations.
But it’s not just patients who benefit from the central geographic location of Cairns Hospital.
Over the decades, a health precinct has sprung up around the hospital, allowing patients to easily go between services such as private sector specialists, pathology labs, pharmacies and medical imaging facilities.
Keeping the hospital where it is also protects the value of existing investment in buildings, businesses, systems, and surrounding health services.
If a new hospital was to be developed south of Cairns, all of these services and facilities would need to follow.
Additionally, so would our workforce.
Cairns and Hinterland Hospital and Health Service is the largest employer in Far North Queensland, with more than 8000 staff. A majority of our staff work at Cairns Hospital and our other facilities within the city.
And that’s not to say staff tend to want to live close to where they work, in which case considerations would need to be made about massively expanding housing availability in southside suburbs.
Another limiting factor is the cost. A greenfield build can offer space and a clean layout, but it would require major enabling works like roads, water, power, sewer, digital connectivity, and staff amenities before clinical buildings even start. Those enabling costs can be substantial.
Additionally, there has already been well and truly more than $1 billion already invested in Cairns Hospital over the past few decades, notably our new Mental Health Unit that was officially opened early last year; and our newly expanded Emergency Department.
Expanding our existing hospital ensures these investments are not lost, as the cost of building a whole new hospital would be many times more expensive.
Some members of the public would like to see a public Emergency Department (ED) established at Edmonton.
Any ED would need a wealth of support services to ensure it was able to operate safely 24/7, including operating theatres, intensive care unit, specialist teams, on-site labs, blood bank, and inpatient beds to assist anyone needing emergency care beyond very short-term stabilisation. Otherwise, this could force risky and time-consuming road or air transfers to Cairns Hospital.
Ultimately, however, the problem with relocation or duplication of hospitals comes down to our population.
The broader Cairns and Hinterland Hospital and Health Service catchment serves a population of about 290,000 people.
This is a relatively modest population size for a regional city; and this number of people does not yet justify the enormous cost and duplication or re-establishment services for a major full hospital south of Cairns.
While the idea of a new hospital in Edmonton or further south appeals as a solution to growth pressures, the reality is that our current central location delivers the most efficient, safe, and equitable access to high-level care for the entire Far North Queensland catchment, including remote communities and international patients.
By strategically expanding on our established site through this unprecedented $1 billion investment, we are future-proofing Cairns Hospital to serve our community for generations to come, ensuring world-class healthcare remains right where it is needed most: close to home for the vast majority of Far North Queenslanders.