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- 9 March 2006
Mona Vale Hospital
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Page: 21445
Mr ALEX McTAGGART (Pittwater) [5.57 p.m.]: I take this opportunity to put on the public record the Pittwater community's fight for their hospital, Mona Vale Hospital. Over the past six years much has been said about Mona Vale Hospital. There have been arguments and passionate pleas to the Department of Health to support its services and improve the appalling state of its infrastructure. But we have never set out an overview of the community's fight to retain Mona Vale Hospital, its steadfast resolve and the lengths to which it has gone in defence of its hospital. There has been a continual fixing of the process by the Northern Sydney Area Health Service in order to arrive at an outcome to suit the area health service and to cut Mona Vale out of the equation. In 1999 the chief executive officer of that area health service, Dr Stephen Christley, came to Mona Vale hall to introduce his version of "Health on the Northern Beaches".
Dr Christley's vision was to shut down Mona Vale and Manly hospitals and to build a brand new hospital at Frenchs Forest. His proposal was met with stunned disbelief. Why close a functioning, well-loved community hospital? The community was outraged and could not understand where this harebrained scheme had come from. We soon found out. It had its genesis in the specialists who worked at Manly Hospital. Manly Hospital is very old and run down, and its location is completely unsuitable for a major hospital. It desperately needs replacement. The specialists wanted a new public hospital close to their intended private hospital at Frenchs Forest so that they could take advantage of public infrastructure to support their own operations. So began our journey.
In December 2000, together with a group of community people, I formed the Save Mona Vale Hospital Action Group and we began our campaign, little realising that almost six years later we would still be fighting. The area health service, which wanted a single hospital for the northern beaches, issued an options paper entitled "Towards Better Health 2000". A sham consultation process followed. The community consistently supported Mona Vale but the survey results were skewed or ignored. Rallies of 6,000 and 3,500 led to former health Minister, Craig Knowles, in 2002, changing direction and issuing a one network two hospitals strategy, committing budget funds in March 2003 for a procurement feasibility plan [PFP]. That PFP moved to a site selection process and Mona Vale mysteriously became first a complementary hospital, then had a complementary role. So, by default, the area health service brought the debate back to a single hospital for the northern beaches, against the wishes of the community.
During 2004 the site selection process took a number of twists and turns, with Dee Why, Frenchs Forest, Brookvale Bus Depot, Warringah Golf Club, Beacon Hill High School and Mona Vale listed in that order. Then in 2005 an upper House inquiry was forced to investigate a number of issues about Mona Vale. This inquiry found Mona Vale suitable for the level 5 hospital, and asked for the next stage of the consultation process to be fair and transparent. The area health service then progressed to a value management study [VMS], which was undertaken to short list the six sites. This was again a sham process designed to cut Mona Vale out of the running. The community was outraged.
That value management study was completed in July 2005 and Dee Why and Frenchs Forest came out as the preferred sites. The process was then handed to the Department of Health for economic appraisal and that is where the process is at the moment. On 6 December 2005 the Government's response to the parliamentary inquiry into Mona Vale was tabled. The implications of the principal findings were that there would be only one level 5 hospital on the northern beaches. Mona Vale would have a complementary role. There was no detail of what a complementary role is and no detail of what services would be at Mona Vale, and there was no guarantee that the Mona Vale land would not be sold. The community was horrified. All the work, passion and commitment had been for nothing.
The council then undertook to get a package together that would make Mona Vale fit the criteria of the VMS and get Mona Vale back into the process. That investigation brought them to the conclusion that they needed to find another location to fit the criteria and they came up with the Warriewood proposal. That is where we currently are. In two weeks time Cabinet will make its decision. The northern beaches community has consistently supported Mona Vale. Every time an options paper or survey was put to the community it comprehensively supported Mona Vale. The 26 November by-election was a referendum on Mona Vale hospital.
The area health service has consistently changed the guidelines to rule out Mona Vale and push its own agenda. The community has no confidence in it. Rallies, letter-writing campaigns, postcard campaigns, strategy papers, health papers and forums, newsletters and workshops—what more can a community do to defend its hospital? We are committed to Mona Vale, the community supports Mona Vale, the community wants Mona Vale and the community will reluctantly offer the Warriewood site only as a last option to keep a level 5 hospital in Pittwater and preserve the Mona Vale Hospital site in public ownership.
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