Letters to the editor

This closure comes five years before the new expansion of the Goulburn Base Hospital will be completed. Janet Compton stated that integrating services on the Goulburn Base site would facilitate better patient flow.

This would be true when the new hospital is built, but not by compressing all the services from the Bourke Street Health Service into the outdated existing structure of the Goulburn Base Hospital.

She also stated that it would be premature to say exactly where services would be located. I would have thought it would be logical to determine this before announcing the closure of the Bourke Street site.

Janet Compton stated in the Goulburn Post (23/9) that nobody would lose their job, but in communication with staff she could not guarantee this and stated “there are no guarantees in life”. She said there is capacity at Goulburn Base Hospital and that it is only running at 60 per cent capacity. Both statements are incorrect.

There are six beds not open on the new rehabilitation ward and eight beds are closed elsewhere in the Goulburn Base Hospital, as stated by Goulburn Health Services manager Denis Thomas at a meeting with staff recently.

The Bourke Street Health Service has a 21-bed Marian Unit, as stated by NSW Nurses and Midwives Association Goulburn branch secretary Jane Carter in the Goulburn Post, and has physical space to accommodate 32 patients. The maths doesn't quite add up.

The service and care provided at Bourke Street cannot be duplicated at the present time at the Goulburn Base site. The physical size of the Bourke Street Marian Unit ward allows for flexibility with palliative patients who are at end-of-life.

Patients are easily moved to another room to allow family members privacy with their loved ones. Families regularly stay overnight – the larger and more modern rooms allow this – and this assists the families to feel welcome at this facility at a time of great sadness and stress. There is also a private courtyard, barbecue, and palliative lounge room for patients and families that will not be provided at the existing Goulburn Base site. The hydrotherapy pool will also close.

I would ask the community to support the staff at the Bourke Street Health Service to keep this facility open until the new hospital is built, which was originally promised. I would also ask a local member Pru Goward for her support as she was elected to represent this community. If the new hospital redevelopment does not happen – and politicians do break promises – then there will be no going back and re-opening the Bourke Street Health Service.

Just a quick letter to congratulate Yvonne Neale and the Lilac Festival Committee on another successful family weekend; the 65^th festival. It’s terrific to acknowledge great contributors to the Goulburn community like Achiever of the Year, Braydan Fenwick. Despite the wind and rain, which saw many popular events cancelled, children were still able to enjoy the rides in Montague Street. I have to admit to trying the dodgems myself, with a grand-daughter for an excuse. Meanwhile, the garden awards were cancelled, so needed to be hand-delivered to winners by devoted gardeners like Ken May. What an effort on a windy Monday afternoon!

I was honoured to have opened the festival, but it was disappointing that a very small but vocal minority, led by Ursula Stevens, sought to disrupt the Belmore Park festivities with a protest and placards. I cannot recall that sort of attention-seeking ever happening before and I know how troubling it was for the Committee.

I guess it just goes to show who doesn’t understand this community and the importance of respecting other people’s events. Next time, why not try the side-shows instead of being one.

"You can fool some of the people all of the time, and all of the people some of the time, but you cannot fool all of the people all of the time" ... quote Abraham Lincoln.

Angus Taylor, our local Federal member, should well heed Abraham Lincoln's advice. Angus's press release and smiling face embraced page 3 of the Post (30/9) under the headline ‘Cutting tax a win for farmers’.

Seriously, Angus, the content of the press release wouldn't pass an ABC fact check, but would qualify in the same category of what ends up on the floor of a cattle truck.

Angus praises the decision by Cabinet to cut the backpacker tax from 32.5 per cent to 19pc as a big win for Hume's farmers and local tourism, and paints a touching glowing picture of how this will help farmers "from the fruit orchards of the Wollondilly to the sheep farmers of the Boorowa district". (sigh)

Angus fails the pub test badly when it comes to the facts that the backpacker tax was never activated, so how can you reduce something that never existed. The only reason the "tax that never existed" was "reduced" was because of a regional Lib MP backlash that brought the Government backdown.

Angus, it’s good to see you as our local Federal member contributing with press releases that matter and truthfully inform, but take a word of advice: make sure whoever draws up your press releases to do a fact check. It’s not pleasant to have to hose out the floor of a cattle truck.