How many years, and over how many budgets, has the ACT government promised Canberra a new hospital?
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![The Canberra hospital. The Canberra hospital.](/images/transform/v1/crop/frm/fdcx/doc6udprzq2xyrbp0i2iie.jpg/r0_218_4256_2611_w1200_h678_fmax.jpg)
At least since the 2012 election, and probably well before.
Even former chief minister Jon Stanhope pointed out this week that he had had a solid plan in place before he left office in 2011 to secure the ACT's health future.
He said his plans for an $800 million third hospital in Canberra had been scrapped in the interim, due to different priorities of subsequent Labor governments.
It's hard to fathom, eight years on, how hospitals and the health sector are not a top priority for any government, be it Liberal or Labor.
It's hard to fathom, eight years on, how hospitals and the health sector are not a top priority for any government, Liberal or Labor
But now that plans for the second stage of Canberra's light rail have been put on hold thanks to the shock federal election result last month, the ACT government can perhaps now turn its attention to what is becoming an ever more pressing problem - the state of the territory's hospitals.
There are signs this is already happening; ahead of tomorrow's budget, the government has announced it will add more beds and services to the planned Canberra Hospital expansion project that formed a key part of its 2016 election campaign.
The Surgical Procedures, Interventional Radiology and Emergency - known as SPIRE - centre was a key promise before that election, when the government said it would be delivered by 2022.
But construction is yet to begin and the government has delayed the expected completion to 2023-24.
It's not hard to work out what some of the competing priorities have been in the intervening years; upon winning the 2016 election, Andrew Barr said Canberrans had voted for the light rail, as much as for a Labor government.
That particular project has absorbed and fixated the city ever since.
Today, though, now that the red trams are rolling up and down Northbourne Avenue for all the world as if they'd been doing so forever, and plans for the next stage have been postponed due to lack of funds, it's a good time for the government to focus squarely on the hospital upgrades it has been promising - and failing to deliver - for so long.
Health Minister Meegan Fitzharris this week said the decision to add to the SPIRE project - with plans for 12 extra intensive care beds and two more operating theatres than previously pledged - had come as a result of talks with clinicians.
But it also comes amid concerns about the hospital's capacity and its ability to deal with increasing pressures in coming years.
Meanwhile, across town, it has been revealed that most of Calvary Public Hospital's buildings and infrastructure are rapidly reaching the end of their useful life.
It was reported this week that a submission paper presented to the government in July last year said about $109 million over five years was needed to avoid further deterioration of ailing assets.
The report came after Ms Fitzharris announced on Wednesday $40 million over four years in funding for Calvary, in a pre-budget announcement.
But the money would not be used to rehabilitate buildings that will be out of date and unusable with the next two decades.
Now is the time for the government to make good its numerous promises to address and fix the territory's ailing health sector.
The trams can wait, but Canberrans cannot.