The public Queensland Children's Hospital (QCH), on Stanley Street in South Brisbane, Queensland, Australia, is the primary facility of Children's Health Queensland. QCH has an emergency department, an intensive, critical care unit, offers specialist general medical and surgical services. The QCH is categorised as a level-six service under the Clinical Services Capability Framework 2014, meaning it is responsible for providing general health services to children and young people in the greater Brisbane metropolitan area, as well as tertiary-level care. The hospital employs more than 2,500 staff from a range of disciplines. In its first full year of operations (2015), QCH admitted almost 38,000 patients, saw 63,634 emergency presentations, performed 14,113 operations, and provided 188,765 specialist outpatient appointments.

History

QCH was opened as the Lady Cilento Children's Hospital on 29 November 2014. The concept of a single specialist paediatric hospital for Brisbane was a key recommendation from a task force that was commissioned to examine Queensland paediatric cardiac services in 2006. The Queensland Government assembled the task force in light of the Mellis Review, which found the model of paediatric care at the time was fragmented and unsustainable. It recommended that all services should be consolidated into a single children’s hospital. Into one new facility, QCH combined the former Royal Children's Hospital, the former Mater Children's Hospital, and the paediatric cardiac services formerly offered by The Prince Charles Hospital. The estimated construction cost of QCH was A$1.2 billion. The 12-level facility is the largest children's health service in Queensland.

Hospital name

During the early stages of the project, the hospital was known as the Queensland Children's Hospital. On 15 December 2013, the then Queensland Premier Campbell Newman announced that the hospital would be named after Queensland clinician Lady Phyllis Cilento. On 21 September 2018, health minister Steven Miles announced that the hospital would revert to its original name of Queensland Children's Hospital, after staff petitioned the Queensland government to change the name to a more "conventional" one, which the hospital's foundation said would secure more money from overseas donors. Miles claimed that an online poll showed strong support for the name change. However, it was later revealed that many votes for the name change came from a small number of government IP addresses. This lead to allegations that the government may have attempted to rig the vote, and Miles was referred to the Queensland Crime and Corruption Commission (CCC). On 13 December 2018 workers began removing the words Lady Cilento from the sign on the building.

Education and research

The QCH is known for its role in medical research, undertaking research programs with universities such as The University of Queensland and the Queensland University of Technology. It is co-located with the Centre for Children's Health Research, which officially opened on 27 November 2015. The nine-level centre houses:

Design

The QCH was designed by the firm Conrad Garget Lyons. Based on the concept of a living tree, the building was designed as a network of trunks and branches running throughout the complex, with outdoor gardens and terraces that fill the hospital with as much natural light as possible. The building design has received a number of awards, including: At the 2015 Design and Health International Academy Awards, the Hospital design was awarded as the overall winner for Autogenic Design Project for Healthcare Environment. In addition, it was awarded Highly Commended for International Health Project over 40,000m2.

Schooling

The hospital provides educational programs to students from prep to year 12 for inpatients, outpatients, and family members of hospitalised patients in several settings and locations across the hospital community.