THE John Hunter Hospital will have "significantly more" parking after its $780 million expansion, Hunter New England Health chief executive Michael DiRienzo says.
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Mr DiRienzo said there would be several levels of parking underneath the new structures at the site - one of the benefits of building "in the gully" beside the Hunter Medical Research Institute.
"There will be more parking, a lot more," he said. "With the enhanced purposes, there will be more staff, and with that in mind, we have to make sure we adequately cover the parking availability. With that new building, once you get to road level, there could be anywhere from four or five different levels of car parking underneath. To some extent, the land falling away will actually help us utilise that space for car parking."
He said any current car parking spaces lost to a new internal entrance road in the redevelopment would be "minimal," and made up for elsewhere.
Mr DiRienzo's comments came as State Member for Wallsend, Sonia Hornery, raised concerns there would be "reprehensible" consequences if hospital construction began before "necessary infrastructure" was in place.
Ms Hornery said if the construction relied on the single entry and exit point to the hospital on Lookout Road, it would cause further traffic congestion and delays for staff and visitors. She called for Hunter New England Health to consider reinstating the park and ride shuttle service from McDonald Jones Stadium to the hospital in order to alleviate congestion in the interim.
But Mr DiRienzo said the shuttle service had been ceased because it was ineffective, and costly.
"It's not a possibility," he said. "That shuttle service would be caught up in exactly the same congestion leaving the campus."
But he said they were trying to get the traffic signals modified to give more priority to vehicles leaving the hospital during peak periods, and looking at adapting the current left exit onto Lookout Road near Newcastle Private Hospital to include a right turn option. Construction vehicles would use "fire trail" access points.
"We did pretty well when we built HMRI and the forensic facility, and recently the private hospital expanded as well," he said. "The location of where we're expanding actually mitigates that risk. We're building this alongside the HMRI building, and entry can come from some of those fire trails that come off Lookout Road as well.
"We will be talking to Transport for NSW about where the Newcastle Inner City Bypass sits, because at the end of the day, it looks as though these two projects will be running in parallel with each other."
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