NSW Minister for Health Jillian Skinner announced on Thursday that the Goulburn Base Hospital would not continue down the proposed public-private partnership. Below are the responses to the announcement from some of Goulburn’s key health players and advocates.
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Fran Croft, Oncology patient at the Bourke Street Health Service
“I am absolutely delighted but now we need to fight for Bourke St because Ms Goward said on Monday, at Politics in the Pub, that Bourke St won’t close. This is about people standing up to dreadful decisions. I would now like her to stand up and say it won’t close. I don’t think it can close, there’s nowhere for those facilities to be accommodated. If it’s about money, I would suggest to the government you cannot buy your health. The government must immediately confirm that Bourke St is not closing.”
Peter Mason, Health Services Union organiser
“It was the people power in the community that stopped it. The community needs to take credit for this. A huge groundswell of people in the community did not want this. The petition was signed in a very short time and we got thousands of signatures. We need to keep up the fight on Bourke St.”
Sophie Ashton, Health Hub project manager
“I was surprised that the decision was made so quickly. There was a lot of public backlash about the partnership but our main interest is that the best possible hospital is built. We still want to be involved in the process. In some ways it’s a good outcome for us, we’d love to work with the public services that perhaps the $120 million can’t meet. Now that it’s public we can go ahead with a day surgery and we won’t be in an unknown direction like before – we can provide private services and add to the medical repertoire.”
Jane Cotter, NSW Nurses and Midwives Association Goulburn assistant secretary
“We were hoping we would get this result but we’re still worried. We need a commitment from the government that they will fund the second stage of Goulburn Base Hospital. Goulburn misses out on a lot all the time, it’s about time Goulburn got something. It’s about time we got a good hospital with good services. We need a solid commitment that the money for the second stage will be put aside. I don’t think they expected such an outrage from the community. The community has been wonderful in how they rallied together, but we still have to fight.”
Jason Shepherd, Community Consultative Committee Chair
“The market has realised that it’s a bad decision. It goes to show that the market agrees with the community that it would be a bad outcome to have a privatised local health service. We need to keep focusing on keeping Bourke Street Health Service open. We need to keep an eye on other public services in Goulburn. We need to keep an eye on a couple of battlefields.”
