Dear Editor,
Our hospital needs a $75 million upgrade. The case has been made: the Liberal Party has promised the funding but there is no commitment from the ALP, and I have been advised by our local member’s office that this funding is not part of this State election.
The reality is, there is little chance the Liberal Party will form government, which leaves our town in a void when it comes to the upgrade of our hospital which is so urgently needed.
It saddens me that funding for hospitals has become a political football match, with the big funding announcements for hospitals, made as part of an election campaign.
Over the last few months, I have watched the news and the announcements by the ALP if elected, the money they will spend for hospital upgrades or even new hospitals, and I lived in hope that Daylesford Hospital will be one added to the list in these last few weeks of the election campaign.
When you live in a small community, in a safe ALP seat, where more than 70% vote ALP or Green and the number of votes we cast makes no serious difference to the outcome for the seat of Macedon, we can be forgotten or ignored.
We live in a vibrant community, made up of schools, early learning facilities, sporting clubs, service clubs, banks and especially community banks, government services, aged care facilities, successful businesses, hotels, an outstanding medical centre that looks after much of our medical needs but what we also need, is a local hospital that is upgraded to look after a whole range of additional and important hospitalisation needs – Palliative care, Dialysis, emergency care and many others.
A forty-five-minute trip to Ballarat over deteriorating roads is not a solution for anyone needing medical assistance.
We have a hospital board with a vision for the future and a community that can make the vision happen.
We need our current, and we assume ongoing member of State Parliament, who is also our Minister for Health, Mary-Anne Thomas, to represent our local community and advocate for funding for the Daylesford Hospital.
I am saddened that there has not been an explanation from her office as to why we have missed out, at this stage, for funding for our Hospital upgrade.
Our premier, Dan Andrew,s in his maiden speech to Parliament said “Politics is an honourable profession. The source of that honour? Hospitals when we are sick; schools to give our kids the best start possible and a police force that is given the resources it needs … these are the things that define state politics – at least they should.”
We need our hospital upgrade.
David Reilly,
Bullarto South
