Parkville locks in 400 hospital beds, but replacement of Arden’s pledged 1800 still up in the air

The new medical tower set to be built next to the Royal Women’s Hospital in Parkville will have 1400 fewer beds than the two towers the Victorian government promised at Arden, but the state insists there are more beds to come.

The Allan government says the Parkville medical precinct’s new Western Building, set to stand at more than 10 storeys tall, will provide capacity for an extra 2500 births every year – the same number originally touted for the disbanded Arden hospital towers.

However, it remains to be seen whether building up at Parkville will deliver the number of beds originally promised for Arden’s scrapped medical towers, sold to the public on the eve of the 2022 state election as Australia’s largest-ever hospital development.

The Western Building, to be built by global Australian construction firm Multiplex on the site of the current Materials Handling Building on the corner of Flemington and Service roads, will house more than 400 new beds and treatment spaces once completed.

And yet the two towers at North Melbourne’s Arden precinct – which were abandoned over concerns about electromagnetic interference – were set to deliver more than 1800 beds and treatment spaces combined.

The government says the new Western Building is just the first stage of its plan to renew Parkville’s ageing hospital infrastructure.

This year’s budget papers contained the shock announcement that the satellite campuses for the Royal Melbourne and Royal Women’s hospitals, 1.5 kilometres away from Parkville in Arden, wouldn’t proceed.

The Age revealed in May that Arden’s electrical issues were known about three years before the project was axed. The government has always said it was aware of electromagnetic interference, but believed until a few weeks out from the budget that the issues were manageable.