Lainey Anger and Zoe Green were winners of the Name The Crane competition. Photos: Kellie O’Brien.
‘Shane’ and ‘Anita Lift’ are the creative names chosen by two seven-year-old Illawarra school students for the two tower cranes being used to build the new Shellharbour Hospital.
Chosen from 130 entries in the ‘Name the Crane’ competition, Shellharbour Public School student Zoe Green came up with the name Shane and Primbee Public School student Lainey Anger picked the name Anita Lift.
It was open to schoolchildren across the region and has provided the community’s youngest residents with the chance to engage with the new Shellharbour Hospital.
Flags with their chosen names will be hoisted above each of the cranes later this week, which are already operational on-site.
Lainey said she was looking through a phone for ideas and putting names together to come up with the humorous Anita Lift.
“We couldn’t think of anything,” she said.
“Then we were talking about being strong and what cranes do and we came up with Anita Lift.
“It sounds like ‘I need a lift.’”
Zoe said her approach was slightly different to come up with Shane, with the idea just popping into her head.
“I put ‘Shellharbour’ and ‘crane’ together, so ‘sh’ and ‘ane’, to make Shane,” she said.
Zoe and Lainey were joined by Member for Shellharbour Anna Watson for a special presentation on-site, backdropped by the two cranes, which stand at 52 and 45 metres high.
Each crane can be seen across Shellharbour as they tower over the site and work to build the seven-storey structure, which has already begun to take shape.
“I only found out about this late last week and I have not laughed so hard in the office for a long time,” Ms Watson said of the clever comedy used.
“Thank you to everyone who entered the Name The Crane competition, which is a wonderful way to engage and involve schoolchildren in an important project for our community.”
She said she was impressed by the progress already made on the site.
“It’s great to see the new Shellharbour Hospital progressing, which will transform health services in the Illawarra and will deliver better health outcomes for our local community now and into the future,” she said.
“The community is so excited about this project.
“Everywhere I go, all that anyone wants to talk about is the new hospital at Shellharbour and what we’re going to have and when it’s going to be open.”
Minister for Regional Health Ryan Park said the new Shellharbour Hospital and Integrated Services Project represented significant investment in the region and set the region up for a future where quality healthcare was on its doorstep.
“Congratulations to Zoe Green and Lainey Anger and thank you to all students who submitted a creative entry,” Mr Park said.
“It was fantastic to see so many schools embrace the opportunity to help name our new cranes, as we progress construction of the new Shellharbour Hospital.”
Each of the winners received an iPad, with Lainey admitting she had planned to save up to buy one but decided to enter the competition instead, while Zoe was shocked that her win included the device.
Located at Dunmore, the new hospital is part of the more than $780 million New Shellharbour Hospital and Integrated Services Project.
It also includes improvements to Wollongong Hospital, a refurbishment of Bulli Hospital and a new Community Health Centre on a portion of land at the former Port Kembla Hospital site at Warrawong.
The project is expected to support about 800 direct jobs during construction, with the potential to support thousands of indirect jobs during the life of the project.
Construction is expected to be completed in 2027.
Winners of the crane competition were selected by representatives from Health Infrastructure, BESIX Watpac, Illawarra Shoalhaven Local Health District and Savills Project Management.
