Tweed Heads Hospital

Mr GEOFF PROVEST (Tweed) [2.01 p.m.]: Once again I am 100 per cent for the Tweed. I bring to the attention of the House a terrible issue in my electorate. Recently I was approached by leading members of our medical fraternity, particularly Dr Nicolas Crampton, the Chairman of the Medical Staff Council, Tweed Heads District Hospital, and Dr Umesh Patel, Director of Radiology, Tweed Heads District Hospital. They showed me a copy of a damning letter they wrote on 8 October 2008 to the Minister for Health, Mr John Della Bosca. I shall refer to certain parts of it. The letter states:

Magnetic Resonance Imaging [MRI] is a fundamental imaging modality and a basic tool for orthopaedic surgery, spinal trauma, complex neurology, complex oncology cases and cases of biliary obstruction. It is also a fundamental imaging tool in paediatrics where there is no radiation risk and in imaging of suspected breast malignancy, again where the accuracy is high and the radiation risk is nil.

Tweed hospital has one of the busiest accident and emergency departments outside Sydney and is situated in one of the State's fastest growing areas. Just on 27 per cent of our population is over the age of 65 years. We have double the State's average of elderly people within our electorate. They use the hospital regularly. The letter continued:

The current providers of imaging services offered over 12 months ago to install and run an MRI unit at the Tweed Hospital. The proposal was approved by local hospital management, but negotiations have stalled because the Health Department will only provide a site lease for the remaining period of current imaging agreement which is now only 18 months approximately.

Given that the capital expenditure needed is in excess of two million dollars it's impractical for any provider to provide such a large amount of capital without tenure of five years. Negotiations have continued for twelve months to no avail. Patients have been without the opportunity for onsite MRI services

Bureaucratic delays over the past twelve months and anticipated delays for another eighteen months are not tenable. It is not appropriate for the very ill to be transferred off site for basic imaging nor for basic imaging to be forgone because the patients cannot be transferred safely.

A number of patients in intensive care requiring magnetic resonance imaging scanning were too sick to be placed in an ambulance and transferred to John Flynn hospital—a return journey of four hours. The letter continued:

The cost of the current off site service at John Flynn and the attendant ambulance costs are mounting weekly and an onsite service would not pose any financial burden compared with the current arrangements.

My colleague Ms Jenny Gardiner raised this matter in the upper House directly with the Minister for Health. I have a copy of the Minister's answer recorded in Hansard, which says that all processes need to be open and transparent to protect the taxpayers of New South Wales. I do not disagree with that. I disagree with the reason that 12 months has passed and no approval has been forthcoming to take up the offer. Even if approval were given today, the machine would not be installed until early in the New Year. The people of New South Wales are suffering harm. Some doctors said to me recently, "Geoff, this is more a case of good medicine by good luck rather than good medicine by good management."

I call on the Minister for Health to urgently investigate this matter. Let us get this machine up and running not only to look after the elderly people in our town, but also to look after our young children, who are our future. Once again this gross mismanagement of the health system impacts on the northern rivers. I have raised previously in this House the lack of medical supplies to the Tweed. I am pleased to announce that the Minister for Health recently released $6.3 million, which vindicated everything I had said in this place. We need equity in regional New South Wales and I will not rest because I am 100 per cent committed to the people of the Tweed. They need this magnetic resonance imaging machine. I hope the Minister will make a good announcement early next week, if not at some point beyond that. We need this machine for the people of the Tweed. I will continue in this place to fight and push for it because once again I am 100 per cent for the Tweed.