Calvary Adelaide tops St Andrew's, Ashford and Memorial private hospital upgrades in/around city centre

The new Calvary Adelaide private hospital opened in 2019 on the corner of Angas and Pulteney streets, Adelaide.

The new $250 million 12-storey Calvary Adelaide on the corner of Angas and Pulteney streets, Adelaide, was South Australia’s biggest upgrade boost for private hospitals including St Andrew’s, Ashford and Memorial in the early 21st Century.

The Adelaide Private Hospital Catholic health group moved its Wakefield Street hospital and day surgery and South Australia’s only private emergency centre, as well as its rehabilitation hospital at Walkerville, to the new 350-bed hospital. Wakefield Street was the oldest private hospital in Adelaide, first built in 1883.

The new hospital included more than 200 basement car parks, with 300 extra spaces in a multi-level commercial car park planned for the opposite side of Angas Street. The $15 million carpark has seven levels of smart technology parking and two levels of office space.

Another large CBD private hospital, St Andrew’s, had a $45 million expansion in 2016. It involved day surgery with two operating theatres, three procedure rooms, two angiography suites with recovery beds, a 28-bed ward, a staff gym and a three-level carpark. Beds increased from 201 to 217 with all patients having private rooms.

Ashford Hospital on Anzac Highway more than doubled in size from a $33 million development started in 2018. It boosts day beds in line with a trend away from overnight stays. It includes a new six-bed chest-pain clinic. Ashford was the first South Australian private hospital to perform a cardiac bypass in 1991.

North Adelaide’s Memorial Hospital, also run by the Adelaide Community Healthcare Alliance (ACHA) gained an additional operating theatre and had an existing one expanded among a general upgrade.

Adelaide’s other major private hospitals are Calvary (North Adelaide), Flinders and Parkwynd.

A 2018 study found that about 12% of the 400,000 South Australians (55%) without health insurance are paying to be treated in private hospitals and avoid waits beyond five years to get on outpatient surgery waiting lists.

Wealthy Chinese were being offered medical treatment – from IVF to cancer – by top Adelaide doctors at private hospitals as part of package that’s combined with accommodation and tourist attraction visits in South Australia being promoted by Medical Care Australia