The familiar red brick building – which housed the original Wagga District Hospital – faced Edward Street and has most recently served as the precinct’s entrance while construction of the new main hospital building was under way.

Prior to that, many patients would remember it housed pathology collections and some ward space.

Enabling works – basically site preparation – are expected to be completed by the middle of the year, and a final design for the new building, which could be up to five storeys high, is due to be finished around the same time.

The building is expected to be finished by 2020, marking the end of what has been described as the largest hospital redevelopment in NSW.

The current demolition has been made more complex because of the need for decontamination as the building contained asbestos, which has now been removed.

The new building will house a number of health services that had been scattered around buildings on the old campus.

Among these are ambulatory care –  or acute care services that are provided on an outpatient basis – Aboriginal health, aged care, allied health, clinic services, community and mental health services, oral health, rehabilitation and renal services.

Clinical offices and education and library services will also be included in this new building.

Member for Wagga Daryl Maguire said stage three of the development would cost about $170 million, in addition to the $282 million spent on the first two stages of the redevelopment.

The long-awaited redevelopment, which included the construction of a new main hospital building and the demolition of the old one, began in October 2011 when houses in Yabtree Street were knocked over to make way for the new facilities.

Patients and staff were moved into the new main hospital building – then the Wagga Rural Referral Hospital – in January 2016.

“It is great to see work progressing and the old structures coming down to make way for the stage three redevelopment,” Mr Maguire said.

“There are a lot of issues to deal with to prepare the site and we can look forward to construction of the new tower block around January next year. It is very exciting.

“When this final stage of the redevelopment is complete, more than $450 million will have been invested in the Wagga Base Hospital campus.”

Ambulatory clinics, pathology collection and allied health departments have moved into temporary facilities on the campus.