Ms KING (Pumicestone—ALP) (2.22 pm): I add my condolences as well. Queensland's satellite hospital program is absolutely world-leading. It has generated huge interest and enthusiasm in the communities of Pumicestone. In 2020 the Premier came to Bribie to announce seven new satellite hospitals for South-East Queensland. These seven satellite hospitals, we know, will give Queenslanders more health care closer to home, they will take pressure off major hospitals and they will make space for more beds.
Mrs Gerber: How many emergency beds will it have?
Ms KING: I take that interjection from the member for Currumbin who does not seem very pleased to see key healthcare infrastructure being built in—
Mrs Gerber interjected.
Mr DEPUTY SPEAKER: Member for Currumbin will cease your interjections.
Ms KING: Chemotherapy, dialysis, mental health and rehab support right in the heart of their communities. Local residents in Pumicestone will have access to not one but two satellite hospitals, with one to be built at Bribie and another at Caboolture. Less than a year after the initial announcement, intensive planning was well progressed and all seven sites were identified. I was delighted to be part of the sod-turning ceremony that kicked off construction at the Caboolture site at Rowe Street.
Queensland company Hutchinson Builders will be the managing contractor for these key infrastructure projects. Hutchinson has vast experience to ensure that they are delivered on time and on budget. Locally, the projects are creating 202 construction jobs across the two sites throughout the build and that is not even counting the hospital doctors, hospital nurses and support staff that will be employed on those sites once they open.
It took slightly longer due to our local land shortages, but when the Bribie Island site was identified, the Department of Health conducted extensive community consultation and I also conducted my own community survey to hear firsthand what services Bribie locals want most.
Urgent care and chronic health services like dialysis and chemotherapy are top priorities for our community, and many Bribie residents currently travel long distances to access those services, so getting this care closer to home, right in the heart of our community, will make a great difference to their lives.
Very soon we will see construction start on our Bribie Island satellite hospital, on the 1.5 hectare site on the corner of First Avenue and Goodwin Drive, right next door to Bribie Island High. Once the satellite hospital opens, having a brand new satellite hospital there will give high school students the opportunity to explore pathways into health care and help us grow our own local workforce.
Planning and preparation for this key infrastructure project takes time and we absolutely have to get it right, but, like everyone in our community, I cannot wait to see the workers on site at Bribie and our state of the art satellite hospital take shape. That is in stark contrast to those opposite who did not plan for a single new hospital, they do not back our healthcare system, and they do not invest in it.
