Are we building a hospital or

or a monument to the folly of politicians?

Back in 2013 the state government announced a big new project, a new children's hospital. It was a very big project. It was to be completed by 2023.  

The cost was huge of course. Building any hospital will never be cheap. They get built because we need them. This project was going to be "state of the art". 

We already have another "state of the art" hospital in this state. It is still the most expensive building in the southern hemisphere. It is too small and there are multiple other problems with it. I have been in and out of it to visit patients. Somehow I have, with the help of "volunteers", managed to find my way to various "wards". They are actually not wards in the old fashioned sense of a hospital ward. Every room is a single room with ensuite facilities. There are clusters of rooms together so that cardiac patients might be found in one place and mental health patients in another...and so on.  

There is also the enormous (and it is genuinely enormous) cathedral like space which is the reception area if you are unfortunate enough to have to visit someone there. That alone must have cost millions to build. It is not welcoming. It is a waste of space. The staff working there always look harassed and anxious. I can understand their concerns so I always try to be especially nice to them.

Doctor Nephew worked there for a while during his final year at university. It was not a happy experience. The Emergency Department is far too small. There is a need for at least twice as many beds. There is nowhere for staff to store their personal belongings, sit down to write a report or get a much needed tea or coffee let alone something to eat.

Outside there is a fancy plaque telling people the hospital was opened by the state's Premier of the day. I think if I was that person I would want to tear it down. I would not want my name on the building.

The first sod for the new children's hospital was just turned over last month - two years after the proposed completion date. It is already going to be the most expensive building in the country. I keep being told by people who "know" that it is going to be "wonderful" and "state of the art". I am also being told by others, those who might still be working there when it is finally built, that it is going to be "too small" and that it "lacks some of the facilities we need" and "we should be learning from the mistakes made and the other place".

So, what is going on here? I suspect the answer is that this might be a too small hospital with problems about which people are already aware. It has been designed by architects who need a monument to politicians - and themselves.

Many years ago I worked in a school for profoundly disabled children. We worked in a building which was not merely unfit for purpose but dangerous. There were plans to build something new and the architects produced plans without consulting the teaching staff. After all, what do teachers know about architecture. We were asked to comment. 

At the end of the consultation period the plans were thrown out and they had to start again. What the architects and others had proposed would never have worked. I don't know what was built in the end because I left not long after. It probably made little difference because the school was closed not long after the building was opened. Millions were wasted on that project.

Millions are being wasted on this new project as well. Those who will need to work there are not being asked - but there will be a plaque on the building when someone opens it.