Murwillumbah, near the border of NSW and Queensland, has been served by a district hospital for almost a century. All the locals have an association with it: they were born there, patched up there, or have family members who died there — over two or three generations.
It’s no wonder that the whole community is incensed by the NSW Government’s relentless rundown of the hospital and the transfer of its services to Tweed Heads Hospital which is 30kms north. They regard this as a prelude to closure.
More than 9000 locals signed a petition last year which was presented to then Health Minister Reba Meagher and 7000 took to the streets for a protest march through the town’s main streets.
Last weekend people formed a human chain around the hospital declaring: “Hands off our hospital.”
The architect of the Murwillumbah plan is Professor Deb Picone, the Director-General of NSW Health and a former right-wing nursing union official. The executioner is Chris Crawford, chief executive of the North Coast Area Health Service who is also husband of Catherine Cusack, the State Opposition’s front bench spokeswoman on climate change and environmental sustainability.
Both Picone and Crawford have so angered the hospital support committee that it has decided to bypass both of them and deal only with Premier Nathan Rees and Health Minister John Della Bosca.
Crawford either ignores correspondence from the committee or is slow to respond. When the hospital’s CEO Ian Murray stepped down last year due to ill health there was no announcement from Crawford either in appreciation of Murray’s 20 years’ service to the hospital or about his successor.
Last July Meagher visited Murwillumbah and assured locals that the Government did not want to downgrade the hospital’s obstetric services.
Since then the number of obstetricians has dropped from three to none. They tendered conditional resignations last month in protest at the policy of transferring high-risk maternity patients on weekends to the Tweed Heads Hospital.
They have given the health authority a deadline of March 2 to restore the services or they will quit.
The Murwillumbah Hospital, like other cash-strapped and indebted hospital across the State, is at the mercy of consultants and the highly paid end of the medical profession.
They don’t like working at Murwillumbah Hospital because the quality of the work is poor: mothers with babies and old geezers with broken hips and dementia — and these ain’t patients they like attending.
They can earn twice the fees at Tweed Heads Hospital, John Flynn Hospital or the Gold Coast Hospital and they lose money every time they climb into their BMWs to drive through the canefields to Murwillumbah Hospital.
Only when the federal and state governments are prepared to take on the blood suckers from the US, British and European pharmaceutical companies and the arrogant, elitist greed of the consultants will the public health service be restored to decent, safe and quality care.
Oh, and smash up the health bureaucracy from paper shuffling to service delivery.
It is profligate to fund 2 hospitals so close together. Murwillumbah is a pleasant town, but has only 7,500 people. Its hospital should be closed and services consolidated at the Tweed Heads hospital.
Could Alex please provide some evidence that the medical profession to abandoning this hospital because of greed?
We here at Woy Woy are under attack too.
While Marie Andrews and Health Minister John Della Bosca may be identified as among the “sensibles” on page 9 of the Sun Weekly. They are local citizens first and bloody lousy politicians second. We here on the Woy Woy Peninsula in the Gosford electorate don’t want them to “break away,” we want them to get away as far as is humanly possible.
We have used your sample email MP Skinner for a petition after reworking it.
Please take on board that Mat Hanarhan and Terry Hayes Northern Area Health have earned a credability problem with serious local residents. They have nothing to offer us as we insist on our beds being returned and have no need of them spining Labor government reasons why that is not on. We pay tax and we would like your assistance in convincing government we know how and where we will spend that tax. There is a persistant report that a priviate hospital rep has already walked through the Woy Woy Hospital Rehab ward with a view to priviatizing it. Lets hope the closure of the Hospital because of low demand in an area identified as gods waiting room more than 9000 over sixty five has not been a conflicted process. After all so many PPP end in tears for the tax payers.
http://woywoyrehab.org/
http://sydney.indymedia.org.au/story/woy-woy-residents-fight-return-thirty-beds
Kind Regards Edward James 0243419140
When the wishes of those who pay are disregarded by those whom we have elected to serve us, that abuse of due process may be considered immoral even reckless. We the peoples pay our taxes which are intended to finance all those public amenities and services which for the most part would not exist without the once seemingly bottomless money pit identified as the public purse. The idea that we need large super hospitals while dismantling those at the heart of community. Has been pushed on us by people employed at great public expense to cut cost and save money. Reports coming back to me that rehab patients and the elderly generally are a disruption and too much trouble for the return they represent per patient bed sadden me. We the peoples have allowed our health care to become a production line and the pursuit of cost cutting efficiencies means that the State = NSW Health. Is only too happy to dispense with these problematic patients by a process which results in those least able to defend themselves being given a hard option sanctioned by the Health Minister John Della Bosca. Either move far away from where they their families and life partners live, or into private health care which in the case of Woy Woy Public Hospital is right next door. In our community what is being done to our Public hospital such that it is , and it is nothing like Murwillumbah supported by its community almost to a person. Is to “ruin” “over throw” everything our community ( currently 36.000 with 9.000 over sixty five years of age) has worked to put in place over almost fifty years. I too will use the word profligate but I prefer its Latin translation.
Edward James writing for and on behalf of those my neighbours who are not well represented.. And are the victims of greed.