Women’s and children’s hospital move mooted from North Adelaide to near Royal Adelaide at west of North Terrace
The Women's and Children's Hospital first concept (bottom right) for its move to be closer to the Royal Adelaide Hospital on the western end of North Terrace, Adelaide city, was superseded by plans (left and top right) prepared for the South Australian Labor government in 2022.
The Women's and Children’s Hospital was slated to move from North Adelaide into a new building in the biomedical precinct at the western end of North Terrace, Adelaide city.
Adelaide was the only mainland capital where the women’s and children’s hospital is not located with a teaching hospital. The South Australian state Liberal government, elected in 2018, had a plan prepared for the women's and children's hospotal next to the new Royal Adelaide Hospital on North Terrace. This was superseded by the plan by the state Labor government (elected in 2022) to have the women's and children's hospital on the police barracks site on Port Road.
The Women's and Children's Hospital, on its King William Road, North Adelaide, site datied back to its opening as the Adelaide Children’s Hospital in 1879.
It was part of the Children, Youth and Women's Health Service along with the Child and Youth Health.
The children's and adolescents' wards offered all paediatric specialities. The women's wards cater for antenatal, gynaecology, neonatal and postnatal disciplines. Currently 19,000 children, plus 5,000 born there, were admitted annually to the hospital.
The Women's and Children's Hospital paediatric emergency department was open 24 hours, seven day a week on the ground floor, with access from Kermode Street, Sir Edwin Smith Avenue and Brougham Place.
The Women's and Children's Hospital Foundation was the primary charity for the hospital and raises money to invest in initiatives supporting the care and health of South Australia's women, babies and children. The Good Friday Appeal, started by radio station 5AD in 1951 – the 75th anniversary of the hospital’s founding in 1876 – supported expansion plans and became a South Australian fundraising institution.