Gold Coast Hospital Fighting for its Life
Alana Jones | September 18, 2009
2012 will see the opening of a $1.52 billion University Hospital in Parkwood on the Gold Coast.
This facility will provide 750 new beds for Gold Coast residents. However, with population increase and the already dismal state of the region’s health care facilities, it will be inadequate for the future; unless the Queensland Government alters their plans and keeps the Southport Gold Coast Hospital in full operation.
The region currently sports two public hospitals; the Gold Coast Hospital and the Robina Hospital. Both are significantly under resourced and under staffed; a fact which most Gold Coast residents wouldn’t hesitate to tell you.
Waiting times at both emergency wards are some of the worst in the state, and patient dissatisfaction at the Gold Coast Hospital is said to be the highest in the country.
In short, health care services on the Gold Coast are in shambles.
Anna Bligh and her Labor Government, however, don’t seem to recognise the extremity of this issue. They have decided that rather than investing in these projects to see health care on the Gold Coast become sustainable for growth beyond 2012, they will close down the Gold Coast Hospital when the new hospital opens.
The Gold Coast population is now at over 600,000. It’s foreseen that over 4000 births will occur in the next three years. It has recently been found to be the most desirable location in the country to work and is set to overtake Adelaide as our 5th largest city by 2020.
Experts have already said if the Southport Hospital was closed, the Gold Coast will be 400 beds short within a year of the new hospital opening. It is predicted that within 20 years this number will be close to 1000.
This number, though shocking, is not surprising when you consider the inadequacies of Queensland health throughout the last 11 years of the Beattie-Bligh Labor government.
Studies have proven that Queensland’s public health system is by and large the worst resourced in the country.
In the 2008 state budget, Labor promised $55 million for an expansion of the Robina Hospital; however only $20 million of this was ever seen. Paul Lucas, Queensland Minister for Health has recently pushed back the openings of the University Hospital on the Sunshine Coast and the Queensland Children’s Hospital by at least two years each. The University Hospital on the Gold Coast is now said to be costing almost half a billion dollars more than was originally budgeted for.
In 2008 the Labor Government implemented a “surgery connect” policy which allows for public hospital patients to receive post-operation treatment in private hospitals. This policy has so far been successful for the majority of Queensland. It has, however, failed residents of the Gold Coast once again, as their private hospital beds are already full.
Anna Bligh has deemed the Southport Hospital unnecessary and too expensive to maintain, but her word is questionable when her government has been so blasé with health care in the past.
Liberal-National MP’s Ros Bates and Jan Stuckey have formed an action group made up of local councillors, doctors and nurses and concerned constituents to fight for the life of the 450 bed Southport Hospital.
All concerned Gold Coaster’s are urged to attend to share their opinions and demand reconsideration from the Labor Government.
Queensland as a whole would benefit greatly if Anna Bligh and Paul Lucas took a moment to recognise the uniqueness of the Gold Coast and stop treating it like the small country town they seem to remember it as.
Alana Jones grew up on the Gold Coast and completed her Bachelor of Communications at Griffith University in 2008. She is currently studying her Masters of Strategic Public Relations at the University of Sydney.
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mr purple
November 24, 2009 at 8:03 am
GOLD COAST
never knew about this surgery connect idea. work as a doc in logan which is probably in a similar situation.
the truly worrying thing i see is that most of the public hospital surgeons are getting older and most of the young guys are heading straight off to the gold coast to do lucarative plastic surgery. i suppose they earn 5x as much and dont get woken up in the middle of the night to do emergency surgery. understandable but regrettable
L8R pete