LABOR'S
HOSPITAL DEBACLE, IS THE COST TO HIGH?
While
renovations continue on the present RAH, one may wonder why, if it is to be
mothballed, yet while the waste continues so does the incompetence of the South
Australian Labor government, with more budget blow outs being swept under the
rug, says Mark Aldridge
1
Billion dollars to build is a massive amount when we consider the state of the economy
not that bothers Labor, they intend to borrow the money, even worse they will
let a private firm run the new hospital, so dare we ask what that will cost?
The present RAH costs a little under $300,000 a day to run, yet John Hill has made it clear
that the new hospital will cost over 1 million dollars a day to run, so who is
picking up the tab, $700,000 a day has to come from somewhere, so does the
interest on the money borrowed and the profits for the new owners.
All
this pain and suffering, the years of debate, and yet the new hospital will
have less beds than we currently enjoy, does that mean it will service less
people, maybe we are aiming at a lower population quota, or is the word inept
accompanied by the word Labor in the dictionary?
The new location has
its share of issues from contamination to local access, unless of course one is
to catch a train to the emergency department, an investment as massive as this,
should have meant a huge improvement beyond looks and that new hospital smell.
Lower overheads, a
suitable increase in beds to match population growth, or at the very least easy
access, but as usual it is all about bragging rights and work for Labors many
corporate sponsors.
New wings to existing
hospitals would have increased beds, been much more cost effective and allowed
easier access, but in any event with recent cut backs to our health system we
would have no hope of manning any increase, and here is me thinking an aging
population would increase the need for genuine health services, with population
growth in the same thought.
So it will cost we the
tax payer a fortune to build, cost us a quid to pay off, even more in overheads
and then we have to pay another huge profits to boot, all this for less
services, the icing on the cake is we pay our supposed representatives a
fortune to come up with this stupid recycled idea.
Labor promised us a
new hospital in 2007, 5 years later and a few million dollars in blow outs and
it will be on its way, just in time to be sold for the third time as an
election promise, without any mention of where the $700,000 a day in extra
running costs is coming from I bet.
Mark Aldridge
Independent and
Community activist