Construction begins at QEII

The state government has announced construction work has started on a new state-of-the-art pathology centre and expansion of the State's Comprehensive Cancer Centre at the Queen Elizabeth II Medical Centre.

The two projects are valued at $54 million.

Several capital works projects will be built at QEII over the next six years, transforming it into one of Perth's largest medical, education and research facilities.

Health Minister Kim Hames said the projects would each deliver major benefits to the people of Western Australia.

He said the projects and would make up a co-ordinated health system across the metropolitan area which also includes the new $2billion Fiona Stanley Hospital, Sir Charles Gairdner (SCGH), Fremantle, Royal Perth and Joondalup hospitals and the new Midland Health Campus.

"Of the 50,000 Western Australians living with cancer, about 7,000 of those each year will be treated in this expanded Comprehensive Cancer Centre," Dr Hames said.

"The second stage of the Cancer Centre will bring together the existing services that operate in five locations on campus and bring them under one roof in a facility seven times the size of the Cancer Centre stage one," he said.

The expanded centre will accommodate 140,000 patient visits each year.

SCGH executive director Dr Amanda Ling said the facility would be a centre for excellence and designed to better meet the needs of patients.

"Through the support of the Commonwealth and CanTeen, the centre will have a designated age-specific area purely for adolescents and young adults living with cancer and will also house SolarisCare which offers free complementary therapies to all patients living with cancer," Dr Ling said.

"These will go a long way to improving the patient journey," she said.

Stage one of the new PathWest facility will provide world-class tertiary level diagnostic testing for hospitals, GPs and other clinicians in partnership with PathWest at Fiona Stanley Hospital.

The six-storey facility will include highly automated laboratories and state-of-the-art containment facilities for the investigation of high-risk infectious diseases.

PathWest executive director Silvano Palladino said the facility was expected to carry out several million patient tests each year.

"The higher level of automation will allow staff to perform increased levels of testing and in some areas will assist in producing faster test results," Mr Palladino said.