By Michael Newhouse
PREMIER Steve Bracks promised last week to pick up the tab for a $184 million redevelopment of the Sunshine Hospital, including a five-storey ward and radiotherapy facilities – should Labor be re-elected on 25 November.
Mr Bracks and Victorian Health Minister Bronwyn Pike visited the hospital last Thursday to unveil Labor’s new health policy, with the Premier using the opportunity to highlight the West’s growing population and increased need for health care.
“This will be a huge boost to the hospital’s ability to provide quality care when and where people need it,” Mr Bracks said.
The $184 million pledge will buy for the hospital a new east ward, with 64 new beds augmenting 64 existing beds, four radiotherapy bunkers, plus training and medical teaching facilities.
Opposition health spokesperson Helen Shardey welcomed the funding and extra hospital beds but said, on the whole, Labor’s policy fell short, delivering only an extra 196 beds across the whole of Victoria.
“It might bring some relief to the common problem of getting people out of the emergency department and into hospital beds,” Ms Shardey said, but called for more to be done in the West.
“This hospital is obviously not servicing the community,” Ms Shardey said, adding that the number of people waiting for elective surgery in the Sunshine Hospital jumped from 970 in December 2005 to 1368 in June 2006.
Sunshine Hospital, run by Western Health, is the largest in the West, and provides treatment for people in Brimbank, Maribyrnong, Hobsons Bay, Wyndham and Melton.
Western Health CEO John Evans welcomed the funding, saying the money was necessary for the hospital to keep pace with the booming population in the western suburbs.
Mr Evans estimated demand for hospital services and treatment would increase by between 4 per cent and 5 per cent each year, for up to a decade.
“What we’re trying to do is to ensure that we’ve got a facility to manage increased demand in the future,” he said.
Mr Evans pointed out the redeveloped hospital would also include the West’s only public radiotherapy service.
Hospital statistics record that the number of people using the emergency department increased by approximately 2.5 per cent over the 2005/06 financial year.
Ms Shardey said she would not make any further comment on the Liberal Party’s health plans for the West until its policy was announced.
The Liberals had not released a health policy at the time of this newspaper going to press.
