Stop the “Whack-a-Mole” Cuts to Murrumbidgee LHD
Murrumbidgee Local Health District is playing a game of ‘whack-a-mole’ with funding cuts to hospitals. Temora Hospital's obstetrics theatre was cut after cuts to Griffith Hospital were reversed.
Shooters Fishers and Farmers Party MLC Robert Borsak congratulated Health Minister Brad Hazzard for listening to pressure from the community, but called on him to guarantee the Murrumbidgee Local Health District (MLHD) cuts will stop.
“If these cuts continue, it’s not just the Minister who will be a ‘Health Hazzard’, it will be the Murrumbidgee Local Health District,” Mr Borsak said.
“The Local Health District is playing a game of ‘whack-a-mole’ with funding cuts to hospitals. When one planned cut is abandoned another pops up somewhere else.
“This is not a child’s game, it’s playing with people’s lives and must stop.
“The reason that Temora Hospital announced their obstetrics theatre closure on August 14 is because the Murrumbidgee Local Health District had to abandon cuts to the pathology department at Griffith Hospital on August 2.
“People need certainty that when they need to go to hospital that there will be appropriate local services.
“The Minister wouldn’t stand for cuts to his own electorate of Wakehurst, so why does the Cootamundra electorate have to cop it? Just because rural people can’t see the ocean from their doorstep doesn’t mean they must suffer poorer services.”
Mr Borsak highlighted that the only reason this cut was wound back so quickly was because the National Party aren’t guaranteed to win the upcoming election.
“This week the Cootamundra electorate saw the quickest reversal of hospital cuts ever, and that’s only because the Shooters Fishers and Farmers Party is contesting the by-election.
“What locals will notice is that just like in Orange, they will see unprecedented attention and funding from the Government because they no longer regard it as a guaranteed safe seat.”
