NorthWest to boost mental health beds as more people seek help
NorthWest Healthcare is boosting its mental health hospital bed count by 30 per cent in a bid to meet rapidly increasing demand, announcing plans to expand a facility in Sydney’s Hills District at a cost of $50 million.
Company president Craig Mitchell said NorthWest, Australia’s largest healthcare real estate owner, manager and developer, also has mental health bed expansions under way in Brisbane and Perth.
There are another two planned for south-west Sydney and the upper Gold Coast in addition to The Hills Clinic at Kellyville, where NorthWest has bought an adjoining 4300 square metre site through the Vital Healthcare Property Trust for around $12 million.
On it, NorthWest plans to build a two-storey extension with 50 beds that will be operated by Aurora Healthcare.
When complete, these new projects will take NorthWest’s mental bed count from 1000 to 1300 – still a small fraction of its overall portfolio and, Mr Mitchell admitted, probably not enough to keep up with demand.
“Demand has increased materially over the last couple of years and I think COVID has exacerbated that but, to be honest, awareness and an acceptance to be able to discuss it has also contributed,” Mr Mitchell said.
“What we’re seeing is a lack of beds. You think about the largest private [mental healthcare] group in Australia, Aurora, they’ve got 1000 beds over 14 facilities.
“That’s actually not a lot of beds. Then you think about NorthWest. We’re the largest healthcare real estate owners and, again, we’ve only got 1000 beds.”
Mr Mitchell said an earlier expansion of The Hills Clinic, which specialises in the treatment of adolescents and young adults with drug, alcohol, depression and anxiety issues, was immediately absorbed.
He said mental health is by far the smallest part of NorthWest’s business at less than 5 per cent of its development pipeline but easily the fastest-growing.
“We’re constantly looking for new areas and new sites, so we expect that pipeline to be increased,” Mr Mitchell said.
Aurora Healthcare chief executive Julia Strickland-Bellamy said COVID-19 has had a major impact on demand for mental health services.
“The rapid change brought about by COVID-19 to ‘everyday normal’ saw a huge spike in demand for mental health services in the first year of the pandemic – our hospitals and outpatient businesses were the busiest we’ve seen,” Ms Strickland Bellamy said.
NorthWest has a development book in Australia and New Zealand of more than $2.5 billion with the biggest focus on health precincts, creating an intersection between education, research, public health and private health.
“We’re starting to invest a lot of time in those sort of developments and mental health would be part of the mix,” he said.
Looking ahead, Mr Mitchell said that the proportion of funds NorthWest invests into mental health will increase.
