latest-news
12 August, 2024
Hospital rally postponed
THIS Friday’s planned ‘Rally to Save our Hospitals’ has been postponed.
Following news of the Labor Government’s announced backflip on cuts to health services and its plans to force hospitals to merge, rally organisers made the decision late last week to postpone this week’s event, scheduled to be held on Warrnambool’s Civic Green Friday afternoon.
According to Member for South West Coast Roma Britnell, the community should be congratulated for its action to pressure the government – resulting in Thursday night’s announcement.
“The postponement comes amid concerns at the lack of detail provided by the government, and the community is rightly nervous as to what this announcement will mean for our health services,” Ms Britnell said.
Along with Member for Wannon Dan Tehan, Ms Britnell said lack of detail shared by the government to date suggests to many that this announcement is nothing more than hospital merges in disguise.
Mr Tehan said he had further concerns that the additional $1.5 billion announced for health system would be used to establish the new Melbourne based bureaucracy Hospitals Victoria.
“How long will it take the government to deliver this funding, and will we see any of that money locally to support our hardworking healthcare workers?” Mr Tehan said.
“We need answers from the Allan Labor Government so we need to stand up together to ensure that our community's needs are being heard and addressed.”
Ms Britnell said her concern was that Labor may only have just shelved plans for now because of political pressure.
“If our regional healthcare providers are to be overseen by a regional service network that controls what services are to be provided, staff numbers, budgets and resources to be allocated, then is this not in fact a merger?
“Let’s not forget that this is a government that told CEOs and board members that they would lose their jobs if they spoke out.”
She added that people in the community had invested in placards around the region which she hoped would be left in place to remind the government that “we won’t accept merges by stealth.”
