CAIRNS MP Desley Boyle will ask her Government to abandon plans for a new hospital on the city's southside and instead build it on the showgrounds within 10 years.

Reviving a more than decade-old proposal to use the Mulgrave Rd site for a new hospital, Ms Boyle last night told The Cairns Post the showgrounds were a better option than the southern side of the city favoured by Health Minister Stephen Robertson.

"It is back to future. It's groundhog day," she said.

"Back in the '90s, that is where I wanted it moved."

Ms Boyle's comments come just three weeks after Premier Anna Bligh revealed the State Government would sell the Cairns Airport to pay for a $450 million redevelopment of Cairns Base Hospital and to buy land in the southern growth corridor for a new hospital to be built within 10-15 years.

She said the $450 million upgrade of the Cairns Base Hospital, which will increase capacity to 540 beds, would go forward irrespective of where any new hospital was built.

"We need immediate beds. We cannot wait. We cannot do nothing for the next five years," she said.

"The immediate fix buys us time to get the long-term decision right."

Ms Boyle said it would be at least 10 years before there was a need to move to a new hospital and that any decision on retaining all or part of the existing Esplanade site did not need to be made at this stage.

But her vision for medical services in Far North includes keeping that site as well as the old Cairns North State School site.

Ms Boyle said that would mean having three public health facilities in the city, that James Cook University medical school be attached to one of those and that there would be an expanded private hospital facility attached to the public services.

She said the Government should proceed with plans to buy land south of the city.

"We are also still going to need some land on the southside for expanded health facilities in that growth corridor," she said.

"They are likely to be community health facilities at the very least."

Ms Boyle said the showgrounds were attractive because of the location, size and that the State Government ultimately owned it.

She said she would urge the Government to make a decision on her proposal as soon as possible.

She said feedback from the community indicated it was the overwhelmingly favoured site for a new hospital.

"I know this will be heavy news for the show society," Ms Boyle said.

"The show society has been asked to move (in the past) but have turned it down.

"That question needs to be asked again reasonably soon."

Share this article