The 90-bed facility, including 30 geriatric-mental health beds, will be located at St George’s Health Service in the prestigious suburb, 5km east of the Melbourne CBD, and be operated by St Vincent’s Hospital Melbourne.

Turning the first sod on the site (on the same day he announced the Government would also fund $1.1 million in training for public hospital and aged care nurses), Victorian Ageing Minister Martin Foley said it marks the biggest investment by a Victorian Government in public aged care in Melbourne for more than a decade.

“We said we’d end the Liberal sell-off of public age care beds and we have,” Minister Foley said.