Frequently Asked Questions

St John of God Subiaco Hospital’s vision is to be a world class academic centre of excellence delivering person-centred care in a contemporary environment which supports healing, new life, clinical excellence and innovation.  

The hospital needs a major capital investment to ready it for the next 20 years to enable it to deliver its vision. The redevelopment is driven by the need to:
• improve the functionality of spaces,
• improve aesthetics,
• increase patient room sizes,
• renew primary, secondary and tertiary engineering infrastructure, and
• improve parking facilities for patients.

Each of these will improve the patient experience now and serve as a foundation for ongoing improvements in patient experience.   

There are a number of components in the planned redevelopment, and revitalisation of St John of God Subiaco Hospital, delivered over five stages.  These are listed below:

• new eight-storey 260-bed clinical block
• state-of-the-art facilities with connected technology to enhance patient experience, clinical excellence and innovation
• new 24/7 Emergency Department offering a boutique experience and enabling rapid access to clinical care
• virtual care hub to enable remote patient monitoring
• dedicated Mother and Baby Unit with large patient rooms on pre and post natal wards, new emergency obstetric operating theatre, 10 birth suites, and neonatal intensive care unit
• six new theatres and pre and post surgical facilities
• dedicated infectious diseases pandemic ward
• kitchen upgrade to enable hospital-wide a la carte room service delivery
• additional lifts to improve movement around the hospital for staff, patients and visitors
• upgraded Sterilisation Services Department
• increased beds from 550 to over 700 beds
• additional two-storeys of visitor car parking on the existing multi-storey car park
• new site engineering plant
• upgraded perioperative services     
• upgraded cardiology services
• refurbished oncology ward
• upgraded hospital entrance and dedicated public open spaces
• new Chapel

 

Our Local Development Plan (LDP) has been approved by the Town of Cambridge. We are now seeking a Development Application (DA).

It will start in September 2021, with the first areas of work being the temporary car park, kitchen refurbishment and lift installation.

It is anticipated that the redevelopment will be finished by end of 2025.

Until the building contractor has been appointed, we are unable to confirm the overall cost of the project.

A staged process allows the hospital to continue service provision, with minimal disruption. The timings and what areas of work contained in each stage are not yet finalised.

A local development plan is a mechanism used to coordinate and assist in achieving better built form outcomes by linking lot design to future development. It can facilitate the design and coordination of development upon small and highly constrained lots, and supplement development standards contained within local planning schemes and the Residential Design Codes (R-Codes). At the local government’s discretion, a local development plan can also streamline the development approval process, with compliant development exempt from the requirement to obtain development approval.

While the Town’s planning framework does not restrict building heights, its West Leederville Precinct Policy states “development on the St John of God Hospital site may be of a larger scale consistent with existing buildings on site.” Our redevelopment plans include a new nine-storey Mother and Baby Centre and an eight-storey medical suites and research building, plus an additional two levels to the multi-storey car park for a total of six storeys. We are confident these buildings are appropriate and reflect the scale of the existing seven-storey hospital building and the former (demolished) seven-storey St John of God House.

The proposed Site Energy Plant (SEP) located on the Station Street end of the Subiaco site will house the majority of heating and cooling plant required to support the new facilities and replace existing infrastructure.

Visitors can continue to access the multi-storey car park whilst it is being refurbished as part of the Subiaco redevelopment. The majority of the works undertaken will be above the current top storey.  A temporary car park will be constructed on the former St John of God House site on the Cambridge Street side that will accommodate overflow from the multi-storey car park and reconfigured staff car parking. 

Upon completion, 222 new parking bays will be added to St John of Go Subiaco Hospital, improving parking accessibility for visitors to the hospital, as well as the caregivers and medical practitioners

There will be a minimal increase. We commissioned Transcore to conduct a Transport Impact Assessment (TIA) report with respect to our proposed LDP.  Extensive video traffic surveys and manual traffic counts were undertaken to establish the existing traffic and parking situation at St John of God Subiaco Hospital and to accurately inform development of the LDP.  Their report concluded that:

• the additional traffic on surrounding roads and intersections as a result of the proposed LDP would be relatively low and the level of impact due to the proposed LDP is expected to be local with minimum traffic disruption on major surrounding roads; 
• the overall network performance would not change significantly as a result of the proposed LDP and the additional level of delays and queue dues were reported to be minimal.

There will be no changes to visiting hours.

There will be between up to 20 beds for adults and children in the emergency department.

The emergency department will be open 24 hours 7 days a week.

No. In general, ambulances do not use their sirens and lights when they are close to their final destination. Sirens are mainly used in situations of transporting critical patients or those with life threatening conditions and the need for other vehicles to move out of their way. 

The emergency department at St John of God Subiaco Hospital is expected to receive up to four ambulances a day, mainly due to the small bed numbers in the department. To compare, Fiona Stanley Hospital emergency department has 66 beds. Acute trauma patients will not be admitted to this emergency department, instead they will be directed to nearby tertiary hospitals.

We have an ongoing relationship with Rotary Osborne Park, and supports their Hospital Equipment Project through the donation of superseded equipment to hospitals in Cambodia, Sri Lanka and South Sudan. Items such as hospital beds and mattresses, C arms, X ray machines, computers, orthopaedic equipment, paediatric cribs, wheelchairs, heart monitoring equipment, defibrillators and infusion pumps, theatre beds and theatre lights, and ultrasound transducers are donated.

The hospital has also donated money towards assisting in the transportation of the donated equipment, and they do not send items that are unserviceable. If equipment can be repaired this is completed before sending away.

The hospital also has a robust environmental stewardship program that works in collaboration with Suez waste management, to ensure that all recycling efforts are maintained.

There will be a small number of mature trees removed, as part of the Subiaco redevelopment. However there is a comprehensive landscaping and planting plan that will revitalise the public open spaces, and add additional trees and greenery to the Subiaco site. The landscaping plan will incorporate a central landscape corridor connecting the north and south entries of Salvado Road and Cambridge Street, with wide terraced steps and a feature curved integrated landscape. This corridor will feature multi- levelled awn areas, a continuous ribbon of decorative planting, shaded plantings for seating and as an outlook for the adjacent buildings.

No. It will be business as usual. We will be adding services and facilities as they come online during the Subiaco redevelopment, further adding to the overall patient experience

Yes. With the expansion of existing services and the development of new facilities, we will have to employ over 100 clinical and non-clinical caregivers to fulfil roles in these areas. Additionally there will be jobs created through the appointment of the contractor, sub-contractors and consultants involved in the Subiaco redevelopment.

No. The hospital has undergone extensive planning to ensure that all services will continue with no disruptions during the staged redevelopment. Through working with all of our caregivers, medical practitioners and visitors to the hospital via regular communication and progress updates, all of the stakeholders will be kept well informed.

Please register your details through the website contact form to receive regular updates. Alternatively email your enquiry to: [email protected] The hospital will also be placing regular updates on their website news section as the redevelopment progresses and milestones are reached.