These are the questions The Northern Daily Leader editor David Ellery asked independent Member for Tamworth Peter Draper on Wednesday, along with Mr Ellery’s comments. They are all questions to which we have sought answers through the NSW Health Department, the Premiers Department and the Hunter New England Area Health Service. HNEAH is the only organisation that has given us a meaningful response but is limited in the information it can provide because much of the process is controlled by the State Government. Mr Draper was also asked to comment on the State Infrastructure Plan last week. He has, to date, failed to do so.
• ARE you still “comfortable” with the Iemma Government’s record on the hospital in light of last week’s State Infrastructure Plan?
According to that document, released through Mr Costa, the Government has made no provision for construction to begin on the Tamworth Hospital in the next four years. According to that document, the only action planned for the hospital in the next four years is planning. Dr Nigel Lyons has told us the planning process should only take two years.
• When do you believe construction work on the hospital will begin? What time frame – if any – can you offer the electorate on the likely completion date?
My view – and one I expressed on Saturday, June 7 to no response from yourself or the SG – is that the timing of the hospital development is being driven by political considerations and not by the health needs of the community. I tentatively suggested that on the information to hand construction funds could not be allocated prior to the 2010 budget with work unlikely to begin until late 2010 or early 2011 – the date of the next election. That was, of course, before Mr Costa left the whole construction phase of the project off the infrastructure plan for the next decade.The earliest completion date I could suggest – again looking at available information and taking into account how the development could best be used to keep the seat out of the hands of the National Party – was 2014.
• Are you confident the hospital will be completed and operating prior to 2014?
2014 is, of course, 12 months out from the State election to be held in 2015. If the hospital is up and running by 2014 it will have taken almost eight years from conception to completion.
• Do you believe eight years is a fair time to develop and build a new hospital in a provincial city?
The Egyptians only took 20 years to knock up the Great Pyramid – but they didn’t have the current NSW Government at the helm.
• Are you “comfortable” with the fact there is no mention of radiotherapy for Tamworth in the 10 year infrastructure plan?
This omission is significant given the hospital project was first announced – and given seed funding – in the last 10 year infrastructure plan announced in June 2006.
• What action are you taking/
knowledge do you have of plans for radiotherapy in Tamworth in the next 10 years?
Radiotherapy planning is carried out at State Government level, not regional level. HNEH is therefore unable to comment on this one.
• What are your thoughts on the lost year in the hospital planning process? Why wasn’t it pursued as a matter of high priority?
The new hospital was first announced in the State Infrastructure Plan in June 2006. $100,000 was allocated for preliminary studies. Colleen Wilson Health Strategies was appointed to carry out the detailed clinical services plan. That study/plan was due to have been completed by June 2007. Community meetings involving the consultants were still being carried out in late June 2007. We cannot confirm when their report was finally received. Nothing happened at all until June this year when the budget set aside $2 million for the Service Procurement Plan and the Project Definition Plan. Dr Nigel Lyons told us these plans should take two years to complete. According to the State Infrastructure Plan they will apparently take four years to complete.
• What advice do you have for the Nioka committee – who you were going into bat for – who have recently been advised (through a statement to The Leader by Dr Lyons) that it would be “unwise” for them to spend large amounts of money on an upgrade in the near future?
Nioka will, presumably, have to wait at least two years until there is a clear picture of what is likely to happen on the Tamworth Hospital site. Is that good enough given the importance of the service they provide?
• What other improvements/
upgrades are being placed on hold at the hospital while this long and protracted planning process runs its (politically motivated) course? What, as the Member for Tamworth, are you doing to speed up this process?
• Do you think, given two years and three budgets have elapsed since this project was announced, that an appropriate level of progress has been made?
Given you indicate it is your job to deliver the new facility then obviously the lack of visible progress also rests on your shoulders.
• Can you really be serious when, in your letter, you indicate Tamworth is unlikely to receive another major health care upgrade after this one until 2100AD?
That is 92 years from now.
• Do you have current information on what the hospital redevelopment is likely to cost?
The March 2007 estimate was $130 million. Concrete, steel and copper prices have soared since then. Using the equine centre as a guide, $200 million would now be a fair estimate. $300 million-plus come 2014 wouldn’t surprise me at all.
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