Written by Alan Kerlin Tuesday, 03 July 2007 20:00
Govt considers new Canberra hospital Posted Sat Jun 9, 2007
ACT Health Minister Katy Gallagher has suggested Canberra needs a third hospital because of overcrowding in the health system. Ms Gallagher says a wide ranging review of the Territory's medical system will take place, then community consultations.
The review comes after the allocation of $40 million in this week's Territory Budget to increase the capacity of the public hospital system. Ms Gallagher says calls for an elective surgery centre, as well as more operating theatres will also be looked at.
"We've been increasing beds probably on average 25 acute care beds per year," she said. "How many are we going to need for the future and how are they going to be provided? There's finite space at both public hospitals and really we need to start thinking about those decisions now."
ACT Health Minister Katy Gallagher has suggested Canberra needs a third hospital because of overcrowding in the health system. Ms Gallagher says a wide ranging review of the Territory's medical system will take place, then community consultations.
The review comes after the allocation of $40 million in this week's Territory Budget to increase the capacity of the public hospital system. Ms Gallagher says calls for an elective surgery centre, as well as more operating theatres will also be looked at.
"We've been increasing beds probably on average 25 acute care beds per year," she said. "How many are we going to need for the future and how are they going to be provided? There's finite space at both public hospitals and really we need to start thinking about those decisions now."
We've written to Minister Gallagher suggesting that Gungahlin would be an apporpriate location if such a plan were to go ahead:
From: Alan Kerlin
Date: 04-Jul-2007
Subject: Hospital plans
To: Katy Gallagher <gallagher@act.gov.au>
Hello Minister
We didn't get a chance to talk at the Youth Justice Centre ceremony this week.
There was an item of recent news I wanted to take up with you - the idea that Canberra needs another hospital.
I'd like to suggest that the Kenny area would be an ideal site for such a facility. It would be close to the Federal Highway for emergency access and for people of North Canberra, easily accessed via Horse Park Drive for most of the new Gungahlin development that is to happen, and would have none of the parking issues that beset existing hospitals at Garran and Bruce. There is also a large retail centre planned for Kenny, which would support the hospital with services.
Gungahlin was designed for an employment base of some 23,000 jobs, but we're yet to see more than a couple of thousand, and the LDA is busily covering up available land with seemingly endless town houses. And then when we get an expansion in Federal Government that could lead to that critical first major government tenant for a development in our area, the Chief Minister goes and sells off a couple more major blocks in Civic...
So if the understandably early discussions about another hospital do go somewhere, please consider Gungahlin as an option - we could do with the employment base.
Regards,
Alan Kerlin
President
UPDATE: 25 July 2007
Health Minister Katy Gallagher has replied (99.58 KB) to our correspondence. In a nutshell, there is a whole lot of planning work going on before they'll know if a third hospital will be needed. But at least we got in early to put Gungahlin on the list of possibilities...
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