CATHERINE KING MP
SHADOW MINISTER FOR HEALTH AND MEDICARE
MEMBER FOR BALLARAT
WALT SECORD
NSW SHADOW MINISTER FOR HEALTH
CHRIS GAMBIAN
LABOR CANDIDATE FOR BANKS
LUCY MANNERING
LABOR CANDIDATE FOR OATLEY
LABOR’S PLAN FOR BETTER HEALTH SERVICES IN SYDNEY’S SOUTH WEST
A Shorten Labor Government will partner with NSW Labor to deliver much needed health services in Sydney’s south west by investing in a new integrated HealthOne facility.
Federal Labor will spend $10 million to establish the new HealthOne service – which brings together general practice and state-funded primary and community health care services – in Peakhurst.
NSW Labor pay the ongoing operational costs of the facility.
Currently this area is extremely underserviced in terms of health services.
The nearest hospitals are St George or Bankstown, both 30 minutes’ drive in heavy traffic. There are no large 24 hour medical centres with allied health services within the area.
This means patients requiring basic urgent treatment have little choice but to go to a major tertiary trauma hospital and often spend hours in overcrowded emergency departments.
A new HealthOne facility in Peakhurt or Peakhurst Heights would service the growing populations in Riverwood, Narwee, Beverly Hills, Lugarno, Peakhurst, Peakhurst Heights, Mortdale, Penshurst and Oatley.
HealthOne clinicians work in collaborative teams to provide prevention, early intervention and continuing, comprehensive primary health care.
The objectives of HealthOne facilities are to:
- Prevent illness and reduce the risk and impact of disease
- Improve chronic disease management in the community
- Reduce avoidable admissions and unnecessary demand for hospital care
- Improve service access and health outcomes for disadvantaged and vulnerable groups
- Build a sustainable model of health care delivery
But instead of investing in new services like this one, all the Abbott-Turnbull-Morrison Government has done is cut from NSW hospitals – slashing $17.2 million from South Western Sydney Hospitals alone.
That’s equivalent to 26,000 emergency department visits or 42,000 outpatient appointments. It could also pay for 48 nurses, 660 knee replacements or nearly 5000 cataract extractions.
The people of Sydney’s south west deserve better.
Labor will reverse the Liberal public hospital cuts with our $2.8 billion Better Hospitals Fund, to ensure our emergency departments and hospital wards have the doctors, nurses and hospital staff to keep up with record demand.
We can afford to protect Medicare and fix our hospitals because we are tackling unfair tax loopholes and making multinationals pay their fair share.
TUESDAY, 12 MARCH 2019