Flinders Medical Centre in Adelaide's southern suburbs to get entrance tower, adding beds and intensive care, in 2028
The seven-storey tower concept, unveiled in 2024, as the new entrance to Flinders Medical Centre at Bedford Park in Adelaide's southern suburbs. The tower was due to open in 2028. The tower would add 98 beds, an 18-bed medical day unit for same-day procedures, and a state-of-the-art 16-bed intensive care unit with a CT scanner suite.
Images courtesy South Australian government.
Designs for a seven-storey tower, scheduled to open in 2028 and become the new main entrance for Flinders Medical Centre in Adelaide southern suburbs were unveiled in 2024.
The tower would add 98 beds, an 18-bed medical day unit for same-day procedures, and a state-of-the-art 16-bed intensive care unit with a CT scanner suite. Four new operating theatres and a dedicated day of surgery admissions area would streamline surgical procedures and the eye surgery clinic would move into the new tower,
A $400 million upgrade for 136 extra beds for the hospital was announced in 2022 by the federal and state Labor governments, followed the former South Australian Liberal government’s $86 million Southern health expansion plan in 2021 to make Flinders Medical Centre emergency department the biggest in the state.
Flinders Medical centre opened in 1976 as Australia’s first medical school (part of Flinders University) and public hospital built as a single institution, also located with Flinders Private Hospital. It earned an international reputation as one of Australia’s finest public teaching hospitals and as a centre for research excellence. It is one of two major trauma centres in South Australia with around-the-clock emergency retrieval service bringing patients to the hospital by road or helicopter.
Flinders Medical Centre was the only hospital across South Australia and the Northern Territory to have a neonatal intensive care unit and a full range of adult surgical and medical specialities, including adult intensive care. It also was the base for the eye bank of South Australia and the South Australian and Northern Territory liver transplant uUnit.The hospital’s staff was supported by the largest pool of volunteers of any South Australian public hospital.
In 2003, funding was appoived for an acute mental health building at Flinders Medical Centre, named after Margaret Tobin, former SA Health government department mental health director who was murdered in her office in 2002. The hospital's new south wing included includes a maternity and gynaecology unit, as well as a birthing and assessment suite. The emergency department’s intensive and critical care unit also was expanded.along with a cardia care unit.
Flinders Centre for Innovation in Cancer, with links to Livestrong Foundation, received more funding from 2009 as it grew tomore than 100 researchers working on cancer prevention, treatment and care. Other investments included a rehabilitation centre with gyms and a hydrotherapy pool, a new 1780 space multi-deck carpark, a dedicated orthogeriatric service and a new centre for the clder persons’ mental health service.
A 2015 Transforming Health plan to move Flinders Medical Centre’s neonatal intensive care unit to the Women’s and Children’s Hospital was reversed by the Labor state government and it received a $17 million upgrade with state-of-the-art technology and a family-integrated model of care.
Besides more beds, the $400 million upgrade announced in 2022 would include:
• major upgrade and expansion of the Margaret Tobin Centre for mental health,
• upgrade outdated wards,
• increase the capacity of the intensive care unit,
• build additional operating theatres,
• increase capacity for emergency and elective surgery,
• upgrade and expand medical imaging services,
• a new eye surgery clinic.
