Thank you Mr Deputy Speaker.
For the last 12 months I have been waging a campaign to upgrade the Emergency Department at Bankstown Hospital.
Bankstown Hospital is bursting at the seams.
But a particular part of the hospital that needs help urgently is the Emergency Department.
To give you an idea of the problem, the latest data from the NSW Department of Health indicates that only 57 per cent of people who turn up to Emergency with what’s called an imminent life threatening condition are seen within 10 minutes.
Only 57 per cent.
That compares to almost 90 per cent of people who turn up to St Vincent’s Hospital, only 20 kilometres away, and are seen within the recommended ten minutes.
Over the last few months hundreds and hundreds of local residents have signed my petition calling on the State Government to upgrade the Emergency Department at the Hospital and finally we’ve had some good news.
Yesterday it was announced that there would be $25 million to expand the Emergency Department.
That’s good news.
But it’s just the start.
Because Bankstown Hospital needs a lot more than just an upgrade to the Emergency Department.
The ICU, the Intensive Care Unit is so cramped that staff tell me they have to use a storage-space to brief families of patients that are in Intensive Care.
That’s simply not good enough.
Can you imagine if your child, your husband, your wife was in Intensive Care and the only place that the doctor could brief you was in a storage cabinet?
The other problem is parking.
Anybody that’s been to Bankstown hospital will know that this is a nightmare.
Doctors have given me examples of the problems of parking being so bad that people with cancer have missed their treatments at the hospital because they can’t find a parking space.
Either not in the carpark or not even on the street, not being able to park within a kilometre of the hospital and as a result they miss their cancer treatment.
And this is only going to get worse in the future as Bankstown continues to grow unless something is done about it.
Bankstown is predicted to grow in population by about 50 per cent in the next ten years.
So the fight to upgrade the hospital goes on. We’ve had a victory but this is just the beginning.
And while I am talking about Bankstown and the NSW Budget – I can’t believe that there was no money in the budget to upgrade Stacey Street.
I’ve said before in this place – Stacey Street is the most congested and slowest road in Sydney outside the CBD.
It is one of the roads that takes you from the South of Sydney to the Olympic Stadium.
Now there’s money in the budget apparently to demolish the Olympic Stadium and to rebuild it but no money in the budget to upgrade the road that takes you to the Olympic Stadium.
It is appalling.
I can’t believe that they have failed to allocate money for this.
But the good news is that Luke Foley announced last week that if Labor wins the next state election they will fix Stacey Street once and for all.
So if you want Stacey St fixed vote Labor at the next state election.
ENDS
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WEDNESDAY, 20 JUNE 2018
