UNION leaders say it was “people power” that stopped the privatisation of the Goulburn Base Hospital.
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“The community needs to take credit for this,” HSU organiser Peter Mason said.
“A huge groundswell of people in the community did not want this.
“The petitions placed before citizens to stop the privatisation were signed in a very short time and we got thousands of signatures.”
Mr Mason said unions would now be keeping the pressure on to stop the decision to relocate the services from the Bourke Street Health Service to Goulburn Base.
“We need to keep up the fight on Bourke Street,” Mr Mason said.
“The other night Pru Goward said it’s not over until she sings. I took that to mean she is fighting for Bourke Street to remain where it is. She wants to keep in good with the community and they have been loud and clear in their opposition to this move,” Mr Mason said.
“People were lined six deep to sign a petition when they knew it was to keep the Bourke Street Health Service open.”
Chair of the Community Consultative Committee Jason Shepherd said it was a “great result.”
“It goes to show the market agrees with the community that it would be a bad outcome for Goulburn to have a privatised local health service,” Mr Shepherd said.
He said the community needed to keep the pressure on Bourke Street Health Service remaining open.
“We need to keep focusing on keeping Bourke Street open where it is until the new development at the hospital is completed,” he said.
Meanwhile, HSU NSW Secretary Gerard Hayes said the State Government’s decision to abandon the partial privatisation of the Base Hospital showed that the economics simply didn’t add up.
“A private hospital operator has to make a profit and ultimately that is at the expense of patient care,” Mr Hayes said.
“Backing down on hospital privatisation at Goulburn is a good start. The State Government now needs to extend that to Maitland, Wyong, Shellharbour and Bowral.”