Labor has rejected the immediate rebuild of Canberra Hospital as unnecessary, and accused the Liberals of treating money set aside for the tram as a "magic pudding".
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But medical professionals continued to strongly endorse the Liberals' promise to spend $395 million on a new building at Canberra Hospital.
Nurses union secretary Jenny Miragaya said Labor should follow suit and deliver on the promise it made before the 2012 election.
The nurses union had ongoing and serious concerns about the ability of the hospital to meet demand not only in the future, but now, she said.
The women and children's hospital was only opened in 2012 but already had capacity problems, and it had already reached its projected 2020 birth rate. Emergency department presentations rose every year, resulting in an "over-capacity protocol" to accommodate patients in corridors and patient lounges. A mental health short-stay unit had opened in the emergency department this year without proper staffing, without hand-washing facilities in the "safe assessment pod", with poor access, and without an agreed model of care, she said. The nurses union was so concerned about safety hat it had called this year for a review, but the government had rejected the call, she said.
Her comments followed the enthusiastic reaction of Australian Medical Association ACT president Professor Stephen Robson to Mr Hanson's hospital promise, describing it as a "fantastic initiative" and crucial for a hospital at breaking point.
Also on Wednesday, the ACT Chair of the Royal Australasian College of Surgeons Sivakumar Gananadha said surgeons welcomed the promised increase in the public operating theatre space.
But Health Minister Simon Corbell said advice to the government in 2015 said better use of existing beds would provide Canberra Hospital with the capacity it needed for another five to 10 years.
The government had "always had a plan" to upgrade the hospital "in due course, and the current time frame is in the next five to 10 years".
The government was changing "bed utilisation" which would deliver the equivalent of 50 beds, Mr Corbell said, claiming Labor's new hospital would only deliver 30 new beds. The government had made dramatic improvements through "slashing" waiting times for CT scans, MRIs and X-rays and improving access to elective surgery by using private facilities.
He said Mr Hanson could not both criticise the government for the cost of running the health system, then propose spending $395 million on a new hospital.
"What he is doing is building more health infrastructure without addressing the efficiency question," Mr Corbell said, also accusing Mr Hanson of promising to spend more money than was available in the budget.
"They can't keep going back to light rail to justify and explain how they're going to pay for their election commitments," he said.
Chief Minister Andrew Barr's office has devised a tally of what it claims are the Liberals' election promises – but its tally is not limited to election promises. Rather, Labor has added in anything the Liberals have expressed a desire to see or called on the government to do over the past four years. As a result, Labor claims the Liberals will spend an extra $500 million over four years, and on Wednesday, Mr Corbell inflated that to $1.4 billion, including what Mr Barr claims is $900 million in capital spending.
Labor's costings, which don't reflect actual Liberal promises, now claim the Liberals will have to buy 275 new buses at a cost of $186 million and spend an extra $70 million on the University of Canberra public hospital to make space for the promises 60 new beds. With the $395 million hospital, the Liberals' promised Barton Highway flyover, other road projects and some items the Liberals promised before the 2012 election, Labor claims a Liberal capital spend of $900 million.
