This is despite uncertain statements about it from the Local Health District (LHD) it in information sessions held this week. 

Goulburn resident Robyn Chalker uses the Hydrotherapy Pool twice a week and said she would be upset if the pool closed. 

“I’m in the hips and knees group,” she says with her characteristic laugh. “There are about 12 people in total in this group.” 

“The pool is very useful for my joints. It makes me feel so much better after I have a session in there.” 

Mrs Chalker had a hip, knee and leg replacement about three year’s ago and she uses the pool twice a week for an hour at a time. 

“I go on Monday and Wednesdays for an hour-long session and I do my special exercises,” she said. 

“The pool is very good - it takes the weight off the joints. It is warm and they have a special lifter into that pool for people like me - I can’t go down the stairs into it. 

“The physiotherapists show you exercises when you first start off, but I do them myself now. I walk around in the water and I do exercises for my hips and knees. I do cycling with my legs and scissor kicks and squats. 

“It only costs $5 an hour to use the pool - so I can afford it. The numbers in the classes vary from about five to 12 - sometimes you can hardly move in there.”

Mrs Chalker said she was dismayed to hear about a possible closure of the pool.

When she was showed the ambiguous statement that came from the LHD to the Goulburn Post this week sating on one hand that: “Hydrotherapy pools have not been incorporated in any recent hospital developments,” she became dismayed.

“Well what does that mean?” She asked. 

“We know they are going to close the pool when they close the Bourke Street Health Service - but we were told we could go to a new pool at the Base Hospital when it is built - but by the time they build it, if they build it - I will probably be dead by then,” she said. 

“Now it seems they are not going to build a new one at all – so where does that leave people like me who need it and use it regularly? I am very upset about this.” 

She said she is angry because the community paid for the pool through fundraising and therefore should own it. 

“The community has paid for this pool - it was Goulburn that paid for it - we built it and fundraised for it. All the relatives will be turning in their graves down there if they heard that this pool was now going to be closed with no alternative,” she said. 

“It is vital. If I do not have access to this pool, I will deteriorate.”