THE privatisation of Goulburn Hospital will not proceed, following an announcement from NSW Health Minister Jillian Skinner late on Thursday.
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Minister Skinner announced in Parliament that Goulburn Hospital would not progress to a public-private partnership.
“Goulburn will not be progressed as there was not sufficient interest received to give the NSW Government confidence that better outcomes could be achieved,” Ms Skinner said.
“As promised, if we cannot secure better outcomes, the projects will be built traditionally and construction will begin this term.”
The State Government has allocated $120 million for the work’s first stage.
Health Infrastructure NSW has planned a four-stage re-development with later work heavily dependent on funding. It is not clear how this will be raised.
A party including the Goulburn Health Hub had lodged an Expression of Interest to incorporate some aspects at the Bradfordville project.
However, health authorities appeared set on re-development of the existing Goulburn Base Hospital site.
A surprised Goulburn and District Unions president Anna Crawford-Wurth said it was “a great outcome.”
“Hopefully they're sincere in this. The people have spoken and the people didn’t want it. It’s amazing that the community has spoken – it wouldn’t have happened if the community had not rallied,” she said.
“The other areas are still rallying and the unions are behind them, but this is the outcome we were hoping for and we are surprised it has come so soon. I thought we would have a bigger fight on our hands.”
Ms Skinner said the State Government’s health partnerships proposal to build upgraded hospitals at Maitland, Wyong, and Shellharbour hospitals would proceed.
“We received an excellent response from hospital operators for the Maitland, Wyong and Shellharbour projects and to investigate a shared infrastructure solution at Bowral would progress to the next stage,” Ms Skinner said.
An Expression of Interest (EOI) process for non-government hospital operators to build and run several regional hospitals was launched on September 15. Submissions from interested parties closed on Friday October 14.