It’s time for the Federal CLP members to put the people of the Northern Territory ahead of their CLP mates and demand they build the Palmerston Region Hospital.
It is now been 20 months since the election, and almost two years since the former Federal Labor Government committed the Commonwealth funds to build Palmerston Hospital but because of the CLP’s dysfunction and negligence all that has been built is an intersection.
In August last year the CLP signed an agreement with the Commonwealth to start major construction of the hospital in May 2015. It is now May 2015 and far from starting construction, the hospital still doesn’t even have an approved design.
With Darwin Hospital close to capacity and the Abbott Government ripping over $600 million out of the Territory’s Public Hospitals over the next decade, Territorians can’t afford any further delays.
The Territory desperately needs Palmerston Hospital right now, but due to the CLP’s negligence, it will be years before the first patient is treated.
The Palmerston hospital has already been delayed until 2018 and if construction of the hospital doesn’t start this month, then it will be set back even further.
Ms Griggs should stop making excuses like the ‘wet season is delaying the construction’. How does the wet season delay the production of a design for the Palmerston Hospital? It is now the dry season – so why is the hospital not being built?
Territorians are sick of the delays and the excuses and it’s now long past time that Senator Scullion and Natasha Griggs put the Territory ahead of their CLP mates and use whatever influence they might have to get Palmerston Hospital built.