Paul demands a fair go for Hornsby Hospital in Federal Parliament

Paul Fletcher spoke in Federal Parliament yesterday to demand a fair go for Hornsby Hospital - the major public hospital in Bradfield.

Mr Fletcher told the Parliament that the hospital has fine medical staff who work in difficult circumstances because much of the hospital is in very poor condition.

Mr Fletcher said that the situation was so desperate that the hospital’s medical staff had been forced to mount a campaign calling on the New South Wales government to urgently fund improvement to the facilities there.

“I was recently with the chair of the medical staff council, Dr Richard Harris, in Hornsby Mall gathering signatures for a petition. The petition will be presented in this Parliament, and I hope to be able to do that in coming weeks,” Mr Fletcher told the Federal Parliament.

Mr Fletcher noted that the great majority of hospitals in New South Wales which had received significant capital funding for facilities improvements in the last ten years were in Labor seats: Auburn Hospital in the electorate of Auburn; Wyong Hospital (Wyong); Campbelltown Hospital (Wollondilly); Concord Hospital (Drummoyne); Prince of Wales Hospital (Coogee); Liverpool Hospital (Liverpool); Royal Prince Alfred Hospital (Marrickville) and Westmead Hospital (Parramatta).

Mr Fletcher noted that the New South Wales Labor Government’s mismanagement of hospital funding in New South Wales was compounded by its failure to secure a fair share of funding from the Rudd Government’s $3.1 billion Health and Hospitals Fund.

Not only did NSW get only $424 million – less than Victoria, Queensland and Western Australia, and well below New South Wales’s share of the population – but there was not one cent for Hornsby Hospital.

Mr Fletcher said it was a matter for considerable regret that something as important as health funding has been so clearly the subject of political decision making.

“On behalf of the people of Hornsby and the surrounding areas, give us a fair go for Hornsby Hospital”, Mr Fletcher concluded.