PITTWATER MP ROB STOKES INVITED TO PUBLIC MEETING
INVITATION NUMBER 1
16 JULY 2018
16 JULY 2018
From: Mark & Bassma Horton
To: ElectorateOffice Pittwater
Sent: Monday, July 16, 2018 11:53 AM
Subject: SAVE MONA VALE HOSPITAL
Dear Rob
A rally has been organised to save Mona Vale Hospital and especially to stop the demolition the main hospital building. I challenge you to attend the meeting at Mona Vale Memorial Hall at 7.00 pm on Wednesday 18 July 2018.
The community has never been given the opportunity to properly express their views on the planned closure of the Mona Vale Hospital‘s Emergency Department and its associated Surgical Department and other buildings including the chapel and old Nurses Quarters.
Why not also ask Brad Hazzard to attend this meeting to listen to local residents and hopefully to lend your support for this last ditch campaign. It is not a rally to oppose the new Northern Beaches Hospital but there is hope that we can still reason with ‘you’ NSW Government in regard to the existing Mona Vale Hospital and its buildings.
Demolition of the buildings, the out of sight out of mind policy being used is not acceptable. We are sick and tired of being told by our politicians and health authorities that they know what is best for us.
After nearly five years of campaigning I have not received any undertaking that there are plans to upgrade or improve road or public transport access to the new Northern Beaches Hospital through the Wakehurst Parkway corridor from Narrabeen.
The alternate route to Frenchs Forest through Mona Vale Road to Forest Way is also a long way off being upgraded. It could take another decade based on the current low level commitment by the NSW Government. I have the correspondence to back up my claims.
With a conservative estimate of a population increase of at least 40,000 for the Northern Beaches to 2036 it is clear that here is a place for Mona Vale Hospital to operate as it is now as a Schedule 4 public hospital.
The population growth of course will be as a result of an increase in new dwellings. If we have to have all the housing growth for the Northern Beaches then MONA VALE Hospital MUST Be Retained for Surgical & Emergency as the Frenchs Forest privately run hospital will not be enough.
Don't forget that in addition to a potential 3,000 plus more dwellings in the Frenchs Forest area, Ingleside is also targeted for another 3,000 plus dwellings and there is the continuing development of Warriewood Valley and bigger buildings at Dee Why.
The push for more density as part of the Mona Vale Place Plan and the push for more dwellings in Brookvale with more high rise housing adds to the woes. Manly Vale is also targeted for more density and no doubt other suburbs, particularly along the current B-Line bus route.
Under the current NSW planning, all of Mona Vale Hospital’s surgical wards including acute care function, operating theatres, intensive care, maternity and children’s wards will close forever. All that will remain at Mona Vale will be Rehabilitation and Community Health with the facility to continue only for Acute Care.
The plans to maintain what will be called an Urgent Care facility is to be staffed. I am informed, by 2 doctors and 2 nurses a shift – not as an Emergency Department. I know that what is planned are a 10-bed palliative care facility and a geriatric assessment unit. Only 10 Palliative Care beds are on offer for a population of over 260,000.
The hospital that we all know and love is to be demolished it seems because of claims that it is asbestos ridden- why then if this is an issue, is it still operating?
Demolition is planned so that we cannot use the hospital for future or existing hospital services or for that matter as a community facility with uses such as women’s refuge, community arts, performance or meeting spaces, or even as a university satellite campus.
Why cannot the old nurses’ quarters be used to house local emergency or medical services workers? As one of the largest pieces of NSW Government infrastructure on the Northern Beaches why is the building to be demolished?
Knocking down the main Mona Vale Hospital buildings is the destruction of our last public hospital on the Northern Beaches. It will be many decades if at all before we have a real public hospital on the Northern Beaches again, if ever. I am aware that there is an option for Healthscope to hand back the public hospital component to the NSW Government after 20 years but how would this work?
It seems far too complex. Are we all that affluent that we can do without a public hospital? The NSW Government has sold us out to the God of private sector profitability. Nowhere else in NSW has a similar public-private partnership been introduced for a local hospital?
Our local Liberal Members have sold us their constituents out in favour of private sector profit making. What will remain at Mona Vale is not a public hospital but in the main, a facility for rehabilitation and sadly I say the elderly and dying.
Are you really convinced that the additional 200 beds to be made available at the new Northern Beaches Hospital over and above that currently at Mona Vale and Manly Hospitals will be enough?
Are you seriously convinced that Northern Beaches public patients will be retained with the same number of beds or more at Frenchs Forest and that the option to transport them to the Royal North Shore, especially for heart and burn patients, will only be a last resort?
I have serious doubts that our NSW Government and health authorities have done their sums correctly. Surely Healthscope, a for-profit business, will be seeking to fill the extra 200 beds with private fee paying patients.
Healthscope is first and foremost a business and would be seeking to attract business from the Mater Hospital, Sydney Adventist Hospital, North Shore Private Hospital and even St Vincent’s Private Hospital.
It is really up to you to Save Mona Vale Hospital.
Mark Horton
2 Elwyn Close
Mona Vale NSW 2103
[email protected] Mob. 0409 611 371 Home. 02 9997 6388
Download the PDF version
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INVITATION NUMBER 2
6 AUGUST 2018
6 AUGUST 2018
----- Original Message -----
From: Mark Horton
To: Protect Pittwater
Sent: Monday, August 06, 2018 9:11 AM
Subject: [Protect Pittwater] Status Update
Mark Horton shared a post.
23 hrs
MONA VALE Hospital MUST Be Retained for Surgical & Emergency
August 5 at 11:30 PM
Dear Rob,
I am calling on you to debate the closure of the Mona Vale Hospital that we know and love. I have been told that you were not given sufficient notice to attend the recent forum at Mona Vale (Mona Vale Memorial Hall at 7.00 pm on Wednesday 18 July 2018) so now this is your chance to set the record straight.
I know that there have been so many untruths told about why Mona Vale Hospital is to lose its heart and soul, its staff and the wonderful, often lifesaving work they have done for the Northern Beaches community. You say that we are spreading untrue rumours so I am giving you an opportunity to explain and prove us wrong.
Would you be prepared to front a community forum where you can listen to what we are concerned about? We are getting a wonderful new hospital at Frenchs Forest but many of us are certain that it cannot stand alone. We will still be relying on the Royal North Shore for many lifesaving procedures and the ambulance will still be heading to St Leonards and past the new Northern Beaches Hospital.
On the matter of access to the new Hospital, you have not listened to my appeals over the past four years to even have the main road access from Narrabeen through the Wakehurst Parkway upgraded and made safe. Your staff have explained that it is not in your electorate, because that is Wakehurst, the electorate of Brad Hazzard.
Apart from a busy Pittwater and Warringah Roads, the only other access from the North to Frenchs Forest is along a narrow Mona Vale Road. While some upgrade may commence within the coming year, it is only stage 1 to Ingleside so there will still be a traffic logjam after Powderworks Road.
I know that I and many others feel betrayed by our local State MPs but would still be prepared to hear what the political power brokers have to say. Perhaps you, Brad Hazzard and the Premier would be prepared to front a community forum?
Over to you.
Mark Horton
From: Mark Horton
To: Protect Pittwater
Sent: Monday, August 06, 2018 9:11 AM
Subject: [Protect Pittwater] Status Update
Mark Horton shared a post.
23 hrs
MONA VALE Hospital MUST Be Retained for Surgical & Emergency
August 5 at 11:30 PM
Dear Rob,
I am calling on you to debate the closure of the Mona Vale Hospital that we know and love. I have been told that you were not given sufficient notice to attend the recent forum at Mona Vale (Mona Vale Memorial Hall at 7.00 pm on Wednesday 18 July 2018) so now this is your chance to set the record straight.
I know that there have been so many untruths told about why Mona Vale Hospital is to lose its heart and soul, its staff and the wonderful, often lifesaving work they have done for the Northern Beaches community. You say that we are spreading untrue rumours so I am giving you an opportunity to explain and prove us wrong.
Would you be prepared to front a community forum where you can listen to what we are concerned about? We are getting a wonderful new hospital at Frenchs Forest but many of us are certain that it cannot stand alone. We will still be relying on the Royal North Shore for many lifesaving procedures and the ambulance will still be heading to St Leonards and past the new Northern Beaches Hospital.
On the matter of access to the new Hospital, you have not listened to my appeals over the past four years to even have the main road access from Narrabeen through the Wakehurst Parkway upgraded and made safe. Your staff have explained that it is not in your electorate, because that is Wakehurst, the electorate of Brad Hazzard.
Apart from a busy Pittwater and Warringah Roads, the only other access from the North to Frenchs Forest is along a narrow Mona Vale Road. While some upgrade may commence within the coming year, it is only stage 1 to Ingleside so there will still be a traffic logjam after Powderworks Road.
I know that I and many others feel betrayed by our local State MPs but would still be prepared to hear what the political power brokers have to say. Perhaps you, Brad Hazzard and the Premier would be prepared to front a community forum?
Over to you.
Mark Horton
invitation_to_rob_stokes_to_explain_closure_of_mona_vale_hospital.pdf | |
File Size: | 50 kb |
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Guy Finlay Its pretty certain that Stokes and other political representatives of the community have informants and relatives that point out to them the general temperature of the community. Now appears to be the time that many of our local politicians suddenly go into a different mode where they seem to be "seeing the light" with regard to what the community wants. But, there is always a but, I would be certain that if Stokes or any other local politicians wanted to speak or listen at a forum, they would want control over the circumstance so that they would not have to answer to the certain inquisition from the people that voted for them based on the principles that they spouted in the past! The only reply from them would be that the party politics change so they are like the wind and bend with the terrain! Only an election campaign of anger against the lame party politicians we have now and support for local real independent candidates that have no connections to the state or federal governments or their "commissions" will bring what the people want to Pittwater.