Wednesday 20 February 2013

Sunshine Coast University Hospital privatisation latest LNP broken promise

Media Release.

Shadow Minister for Health Jo-Ann Miller says Sunshine Coast residents never voted for the LNP to Americanise their regional public health system by privatising the new Sunshine Coast University Hospital.
“The former Labor government initiated this $1.8 billion hospital as a public hospital while the LNP sees a chance to flog it off in whole or part so private conglomerates can put profits before patients,” Mrs Miller said.
At a meeting with the Kawana community coalition to save the hospital, Mrs Miller said the Minister for Health Cuts and Closures Lawrence Springborg should personally explain to the Sunshine Coast community his plans to privatise the hospital.
“The proposal for the privatisation of the Sunshine Coast University Hospital was not foreshadowed by the LNP Government before the election and was not part of Premier Campbell Newman's contract with voters of the Sunshine Coast region,” Mrs Miller said.
“It is a huge broken promise, but as we have seen, the LNP specialises in breaking election promises by also sacking nurses and other frontline staff and cutting frontline health services.

“The Sunshine Coast community is overwhelmingly opposed to the privatisation and wish the hospital to remain a public hospital to ensure job security, fair work conditions safe, quality health care and excellence in training our future health workforce.
“I am sponsoring a petition against the privatisation of the Sunshine Coast University Hospital and I urge all concerned members of the community to sign the petition which will be presented to Queensland Parliament,” she said.
Mrs Miller said the privatisation of the SCUH was only the beginning of the Americanisation of the Queensland health system under the ruthless and callous LNP Government.
“This is yet another move by Mr Springborg to privatise hospital services across the state jeopardising Queenslanders free universal access to hospital treatment,” she said.
“Along with privatising the new Sunshine Coast University Hospital Mr Springborg has also flagged Blackwater and Springsure Hospitals in Central Queensland for privatisation and Eidsvold and Moura in-patient services to be outsourced.
“This signals the first step along the path towards a US-style health system where profit is put ahead of patients and health care is priced out of the reach of vast numbers of people.
“The Minister also needs to tell Sunshine Coast doctors, nurses and other Queensland Health employees working for the local hospital and health service whether they will be forced to work for a private company at lower salaries and less job security.
“This inevitably means more job cuts and more frontline service cuts and the potential wind-back of hours within which outpatient services are offered.
“We saw just a couple of days ago Mr Springborg announce the axing of 234 jobs at Cairns Base Hospital, this is on top of mass sackings across Queensland Health last year.
“Mr Springborg is ripping the heart out of Queensland Health across the state.”
Mrs Miller said the former government made provision for a private hospital to be collocated at the SCUH site but the LNP planned to go much further by selling off the public hospital to a private, profit-focussed company.
Sign the petition to save the Sunshine Coast University Hospital

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