New Eurobodalla Regional Hospital Development

Site selection

The location for the new Eurobodalla Regional Hospital development was announced in south-east Moruya in December 2020. The new hospital will deliver a modern and purpose-built facility to support the healthcare needs of the entire Eurobodalla Shire from Narooma to Batemans Bay.

Following consultation with the community, consumers, local Aboriginal groups and key stakeholders including Transport for NSW and the Eurobodalla Shire Council, the recommended site was identified in south-east Moruya.

The recommended site has been evaluated against a range of assessment criteria including current and projected population growth areas, flood and bushfire zones, capacity for future expansion, transport, and access to and from key infrastructure such as Moruya Airport and the planned Moruya Bypass.

Clinical services planning

The first stage in the development of a new hospital is clinical services planning. The Eurobodalla Clinical Services Plan (CSP) helps determine the requirements for a new hospital, confirm the role of the hospital within the District, the range of health care services provided, and how these services may be provided. The CSP outlines the current and projected health service needs of the Eurobodalla population up to 2031 and describes key infrastructure and future clinical services recommendations to best meet those needs.

Southern NSW Local Health District undertook comprehensive clinical services planning in 2018-2019 to determine the future range of health services required for the communities in the Eurobodalla Local Government Area. The process included significant stakeholder consultation to inform the planning. The CSP was submitted for review in 2019 and was endorsed by the NSW Ministry of Health in May 2020.

Campus master plan

The key purpose of master planning is to develop a framework for how key clinical connections and requirements can be supported with different types of infrastructure, and how this infrastructure can be located and connected to existing and new health networks, as well as supporting infrastructure such as transport and utilities.

It also addresses how people will get to and from the hospital, what associated facilities and development will add to the healthcare facilities, and how the hospital works as a place. The master plan also considers how the hospital will expand and be renewed to provide high quality health services well into the future.

The campus master plan for the new Eurobodalla Regional Hospital development is being developed in consultation with local and state government agencies, clinicians, operational staff and the community.

State Significant Development Application (SSDA)

As part of the Eurobodalla Regional Hospital planning approval process, Health Infrastructure was required to lodge a State Significant Development Application (SSDA) with the NSW Department of Planning, Housing and Infrastructure.

The SSDA provided for the construction and operation of a hospital in south-east Moruya that will service the needs of the Eurobodalla Shire community.

View the planning documents.

The Coastal Network brings together healthcare services and diverse populations across the South Coast region. The Network’s services cater for the health needs of its residents and the thousands of tourists who visit each year.

The Network has four hospitals that are supported by community health services at Batemans Bay, Narooma, Moruya, Bega, Pambula and Eden.

It also has inpatient and outpatient services, including obstetrics, surgery, acute inpatient, mental health, paediatrics, oncology, renal and sub-acute rehabilitation.

Batemans Bay Community Health

The new $20 million Batemans Bay Community Health facility will provide additional healthcare services to complement the new hospital and provide the people of Eurobodalla with greater access to care, closer to home. The proposed facility will deliver community healthcare services such as GPs, dentists and child, family, aged care and other allied health services.

The new Eurobodalla Regional Hospital will include a helipad to support the safe retrieval of patients requiring a higher level of care.

Following updates to NSW helipad operational standards, additional requirements were introduced that affected the original location. In response, Health Infrastructure worked closely with the Southern NSW Local Health District to identify a new, compliant location for the helipad.

The approved helipad will be situated in the north-east section of the hospital campus, positioned further away from residential neighbours. It will also include an undercover walkway connecting the helipad to the hospital to support safe and efficient patient transfers.

A modification application submitted by Health Infrastructure received approval from the Department of Planning, Infrastructure and Housing (DPHI) in April 2026.

To accommodate the alternative location and flight path requirements, there will be minor changes to the trees to be removed and the location of additional trees and landscaping.

Road signage will be installed to inform road users about the helipad operations. Road and pedestrian access to the hospital will be maintained during a helicopter landing.

Work to construct the helipad will commence soon and be completed as part of the construction works for the new $330 million hospital.

Read more

The Eurobodalla Regional Hospital will be established as a Level 4 health facility.

New services like paediatrics, intensive care, and an MRI will be included in the new hospital, allowing us to provide a higher level of care for our community.

The new hospital is being designed to address the evolving healthcare requirements of the growing local population, keeping future demand at the forefront. The hospital will elevate healthcare in the Eurobodalla, offering an enhanced level of service beyond the current capabilities of the Moruya and Batemans Bay hospitals.

The development is being supported by a workforce plan, focusing on training, recruitment, and retention strategies to meet the anticipated growth of Eurobodalla Regional Hospital. The new hospital will require time to transition and develop the workforce to align with the new contemporary models of care, the new facility, technology, and ways of working.

What are the benefits of a Level 4 hospital?

Expanding healthcare services to higher levels means more people in the community can access specialised care locally, reducing the need for travel.

New services like paediatrics, intensive care, and an MRI that will be provided at the Eurobodalla Regional Hospital strengthen our local healthcare system, allowing us to provide more advanced care for families, the elderly, and everyone in our community.

This will lead to fewer newborns, infants, and children seeking care elsewhere, more mothers giving birth locally, increased capacity for complex procedures on-site, and improved availability of specialist outpatient services in the Eurobodalla.

Will there be more beds?

The new hospital will be larger than both Moruya and Batemans Bay hospitals combined and deliver an increase in bed numbers. Contemporary health service design enables flexible use of beds in all clinical areas, as demand requires. This means that wards can be reconfigured if a department needs more beds at any given time.

The new maternity department at the Eurobodalla Regional Hospital will provide a modern, purpose-built and culturally safe environment to ensure women and families receive a high standard of individualised care for this important part of their parenting journey. 

All birthing suites will have a bath and will be connected to outdoor spaces on Country with their own private courtyard, providing women with more choice during labour. The maternity department features all single rooms, a dedicated nursery, feeding preparation areas and a family lounge.

Yes, the new Eurobodalla Regional Hospital is being thoughtfully designed to provide a safe and supportive environment for people with cognitive impairment, including dementia. Some key features will include:

• Adjustable lighting: Lighting throughout Inpatient Units and patient areas are dimmable.  There are external windows to maximise natural light into patient bedrooms, and activity areas.  Windows have blinds to control natural light as required.
• Enhanced safety: Each bed will have ready access to data points and power outlets to support the use of safety equipment such as falls alarms.
• Outdoor access: We are working toward providing safe outdoor access for Inpatient Units. The Intensive Care Unit and the Medical and Surgical wards are located on level 1 and feature a space to access the outdoors. The Rehab and Palliative Care ward is on the ground floor, providing outdoor access specifically designed for those patient groups. Additionally, there are gardens and green spaces incorporated around the site designed to reduce stress and enhance patient recovery.
• Specialised care: The proposed medical profile includes specialists providing rehabilitation, palliative care, and geriatric expertise, ensuring patients with cognitive impairments can receive appropriate care.
• Patient-friendly design: The design of bedrooms and ensuites meets Australian Health Facility Guidelines standards, ensuring optimal accessibility for patients, including the use of contrasting colours and clear signage.
• Quiet environment: Throughout the facility, we aim to implement nurse call systems that minimise the use of audible buzzers, contributing to a quieter and more peaceful environment.
• Elderly care in the Emergency Department: The inclusion of a Short Stay Unit will provide options for the safe management of confused elderly patients within the Emergency Department.

These features are part of our commitment to creating a safe, comfortable, and supportive environment for all patients, especially those with cognitive impairments.

Southern NSW Local Health District works closely with the Cancer Institute NSW and NSW Health to ensure patients with cancer in southern NSW have access to the best and most appropriate treatment, as close to home as possible.

The District, in collaboration with NSW Health, is in the process of planning and negotiating details about radiotherapy services in the region.

The Master Plan for the new $330 million Eurobodalla Regional Hospital includes provision for radiotherapy services in the future.

Construction for the new hospital is underway and is expected to open in 2027.

The community will continue to be kept informed as the project progresses.

The new Eurobodalla Regional Hospital will be a ‘Level Four’ facility, meaning an increased level of health care will be available for the first time for Eurobodalla communities. This includes an expanded emergency department, the region’s first Instensive Care Unit, state of the art operating theatres, and the region’s first publicly funded MRI.

These are services that either don’t exist or are limited in their scope at the existing Level 3 Moruya Hospital and Level 2 Batemans Bay Hospital.

Consolidating and concentrating health services and staff onto one centrally located hospital campus, means more timely, decisive and coordinated care, better recruitment and retention of skilled clinicians, access to new technology and innovation, and greater efficiency. 

Operating two Emergency Departments within close proximity presents significant workforce and operational challenges. 

The Batemans Bay community can be assured that NSW Ambulance will continue to triage Triple Zero (000) calls according to clinical urgency and need. 

The Batemans Bay Medicare Urgent Care Clinic will remain open and in its current location at Batemans Bay Hospital. The community can access this Clinic for a wide range of health needs.

The Medicare Urgent Care Clinic, a service designed to give patients the treatment they need for an illness or injury that is not an emergency, without waiting in a busy emergency department, is currently open from 6am to midnight, 7 days a week and is staffed by experienced clinicians who work closely with NSW Ambulance and other local health services.

The Batemans Bay Hospital and Emergency Department have served the community well for over 50 years but are no longer suitable for delivering modern health care.

When the new Eurobodalla Regional Hospital opens in 2027, the Batemans Bay Medicare Urgent Care Clinic will remain on the site of the existing Batemans Bay Hospital.

Since opening in 2023, it has averaged between 30 and 70 presentations per day and will continue to serve people living in and around Batemans Bay.

The Batemans Bay Medicare Urgent Care Clinic is open from 6am to midnight, 7 days a week.

In a medical emergency, community members are urged to ring Triple Zero (000). Requests for ambulances are triaged according to urgency and clinical need to ensure the most appropriate response to all patients. 

NSW Ambulance emergency medical call takers follow internationally recognised and evidence based predetermined scripts to determine the priority of each incident, based on the patient’s presenting symptoms. 

The community can be assured that patients assessed as requiring an ambulance response will be attended by NSW Ambulance paramedics, who will assess their clinical condition and provide appropriate care.

Following this assessment, care may include treatment at the scene, referral to another appropriate health service or transport to the hospital best equipped to meet the patient’s clinical needs.

Eurobodalla Regional Hospital is located just south of the Moruya township, with easy access off the Princes Highway.

When choosing this site, future options for the Moruya Bypass route were considered and acknowledged as being an important factor in the location of the new hospital.

A preferred corridor for the Moruya Bypass was announced by Transport for NSW in 2024.

With a preferred option identified, work to preserve the corridor can begin, ready for when further planning and construction funding becomes available.

This work is ongoing and led by Transport NSW.

It is difficult to compare services in the Eurobodalla with those in other parts of regional NSW.

It’s important to note that services in each Local Health District are influenced by a unique range of historical, social, geographical, and workforce factors. 

The level of care provided at each facility is based on a range of factors, the new Eurobodalla Regional Hospital will be one of the newest and most modern regional hospitals in NSW. 

The new $20 million Batemans Bay Community Health facility, the Batemans Bay Medicare Urgent Care Clinic, and other partners in the health sector, will continue to facilitate and coordinate health care in Batemans Bay, with strong connections and support from the new Eurobodalla Regional Hospital at Moruya. 

The Far South Coast is a popular destination, and Eurobodalla communities experience a significant increase in visitors during peak holiday periods. Southern NSW Local Health District has extensive experience managing these seasonal increases in demand and plans for them every year. 

The new Eurobodalla Regional Hospital will further strengthen the district’s ability to respond to periods of increased demand by providing expanded capacity and a higher level of care for the region.

NSW Ambulance will continue to triage Triple Zero (000) calls according to urgency and clinical need to ensure the most appropriate response to all patients.

During periods of higher demand, NSW Ambulance deploy resources to where they are needed most, helping deliver the best possible out-of-hospital care for the community, in a timely way. 

Throughout the planning and design process, the project team has consulted with 16 Project User Groups (PUGs). Participation from user groups is important during planning and the development of the design to ensure staff, patients and community representatives have input into the design. 

PUGs were established for each of the services and departments in the new build. Community consultation has occurred at the various stages of design including concept design, schematic design, design development as well as the public exhibition of the Environmental Impact Statement.

Consultation with the Aboriginal community

The new Eurobodalla Regional Hospital Development is a pilot project for the NSW Government Architect’s Connecting with Country framework that will ensure Aboriginal consultation through the delivery and operation of the new hospital. 

Aboriginal consultation has already influenced the design of the new hospital; for example, the maternity unit will be located on the Ground Floor to accommodate the importance of birthing on Country.

Read more about our community and cultural engagement.

The new Batemans Bay Community Health and the Medicare Urgent Care Clinic will continue to operate on the site of Batemans Bay Hospital once hospital services transition to the new Eurobodalla Regional Hospital.

Plans for the remaining part of Batemans Bay Hospital site, which is owned by the NSW Government, are yet to be determined.

Construction of the new Eurobodalla Regional Hospital is expected to be completed in 2027. This will be followed by a period of operational commissioning to ensure the hospital is ready for patients, staff and visitors.

The new Eurobodalla Regional Hospital will centralise higher-level services, including ICU, surgery, paediatrics, maternity and imaging, at a purpose-built Level 4 facility in Moruya. This will reduce the need for out-of-region travel for the majority of specialist care. Located in the geographical centre of the Eurobodalla Shire, the hospital has been designed to support both current and future population growth. 

The following FAQs are related to ambulance services managed by NSW Ambulance.

What happens when there is traffic congestion on the Princes Highway between Batemans Bay and Moruya? How do ambulances get through?

Ambulance requests are triaged according to urgency and clinical need to ensure the most appropriate response to all patients. 

During periods of higher demand, NSW Ambulance deploy resources to where they are needed most, helping deliver the best possible out-of-hospital care for the community, in a timely way. 

During traffic congestion, especially around locations such as the Moruya Bridge, local paramedics from NSW Ambulance and NSW Police work together to coordinate the traffic flow and patient movement.

These systems and protocols are well established and serve the community.

In the future, all ambulances in the Eurobodalla will go directly to the new emergency department at Eurobodalla Regional Hospital, which will offer a higher level of care than the current Moruya and Batemans Bay emergency departments.

An on-site helipad, adjacent to the new emergency department, and the nearby Moruya Airport will ensure reliable and timely access to aeromedical support and higher-level care in Canberra or Sydney. community.

How will NSW Ambulance ensure there are enough ambulances available to transfer people from Batemans Bay and surrounds to the new Eurobodalla Regional Hospital?

Requests for ambulances are triaged according to urgency and clinical need to ensure the most appropriate response to all patients.

NSW Ambulance Emergency Medical Call Takers (EMCT) follow internationally recognised and evidence-based predetermined scripts to determine the priority of each incident, based on the patient’s presenting symptoms. This allows NSW Ambulance to determine an appropriate response.

Where an ambulance isn’t required immediately, experienced clinicians from the NSW Ambulance Virtual Clinical Care Centre (VCCC), provide comprehensive and integrated secondary triage to better understand the needs of the patient.

For patients who don’t require an ambulance to attend to them and can be managed safely at home, the VCCC also provides alternate referral services such as referral to a General Practitioner, Pharmacist, or other health care provider.

This allows NSW Ambulance to ensure the right patient receives the right care in the right place at the right time by the right care provider.

Virtual care by VCCC clinicians ensures that patients with lower critical care needs who can safely remain in the community do so, thereby keeping frontline paramedics for life-threatening emergencies.

Will the Eurobodalla be getting additional ambulance resources when Eurobodalla Regional Hospital opens? 

The NSW Government is rolling out an initiative that will place 500 new paramedics in regional, rural, and remote communities. 

So far, over 375 paramedics have commenced roles across regional NSW since the rollout began in 2024 – including recent arrivals in southern NSW.

Additional placements are expected in the future, with locations decided using NSW Ambulance workforce data as well as consultation with health services, staff, unions, and community. 

The community can be assured that NSW Ambulance conducts regular analysis of all locations within NSW to identify areas of growing demand for the prioritisation of resources. This includes using best practice modelling software that maps Triple Zero (000) calls to determine the most suitable location for emergency care, including examining current response areas and modelling potential station locations to meet community needs.

What is NSW Ambulance process to triage/ care for people in life threatening conditions?

Requests for ambulances are triaged according to urgency and clinical need to ensure the most appropriate response to all patients.  

NSW Ambulance Emergency Medical Call Takers follow internationally recognised and evidence-based predetermined scripts to determine the location of an incident and the priority of each incident, based on the patient’s presenting symptoms.

NSW Ambulance uses the Medical Prioritisation Dispatch System (MPDS) to assist in triaging Triple Zero (000) calls from the community. Emergency medical call takers use a primary triage process that complies with international standards.