Box Hill Hospital: fundind needed in this year’s budget

ASSEMBLY Box Hill Hospital: funding

Mr CLARK (Box Hill) — Parliament’s next sitting week is budget week. For eastern suburbs residents, the crucial budget issue is whether the government will finally proceed with the redevelopment of Box Hill Hospital or whether the money the government should have provided for the redevelopment has been lost on blow-outs on bungled projects like myki, the Monash Freeway extension or police IT systems, meaning that the redevelopment is doomed to disappear, just as the government scrapped the hospital’s 2002 redevelopment plans.

The Labor Party promised in the 2006 election campaign that it would continue with the redevelopment of the hospital until the new facility was completed. However, that promise was broken.

The first preliminary stage was completed by August last year, yet there was no funding from the government to continue the project, and because of that lack of commitment, the project has been in limbo for almost a year.

In the Whitehorse Leader of 14 May last year the Minister for Gaming, who is the member for Mitcham, was reported as saying he was ‘very confident’ the government would provide the $850 million or so needed within the next 12 months. That 12 months is now almost up.

In its statement of intentions 2009 document the government said at page 21:

“In 2009, the government will deliver a number of key projects to improve service delivery in health and education for Victorians, including … Box Hill Hospital … “

Yet no similar reference to the government’s plans was included in its submission to the Legislative Council inquiry into public hospitals.

Waiting lists and waiting times at Box Hill Hospital, even on the published figures, are now amongst the worst in the state, as the hospital’s rapidly ageing facilities cannot cope. It is vital that the Labor Party fund the project in this year’s budget.