Opinion: Lady Cilento Children’s Hospital name change a political stunt
THE State Government’s reasons for changing the name of Queensland’s children’s hospital are rubbish. The simple fact is they’re exploiting claims about sick kids and the hospital’s reputation for its own ends, writes Steven Wardill.
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IT’S revealing that the State Government’s first major foray into the health portfolio this term has nothing to do with people’s health.
It’s not about improving services in regional Queensland, cutting elective surgery wait times or ensuring future hospital capacity can meet demand.
Instead, the Labor administration’s big play for its biggest portfolio is pushing to change a hospital’s name.
Apparently some doctors don’t want Lady Cilento’s name associated with Brisbane’s five-year-old children’s hospital.
Parents are confused about whether it’s public or private, they reckon.
And the name is hampering the hospital’s efforts to gain international recognition.
Health Minister Steven Miles has latched on to the doctors’ claims like a leech on a bloodied leg.
He’s concerned about the kids, Miles insists. Queenslanders will be consulted, he assures.
Don’t believe him. It’s pure bunkum.
That was demonstrated by Miles’s ham-fisted failure to inform Lady Cilento’s family that he was even considering ditching her name.
It was shown again when Miles mused that he was already considering some other sop for the trailblazing physician.
And it was confirmed outright by the Minister’s laughable efforts to rig the online poll he’s running by neglecting to mention Lady Cilento’s name.
The fix is in.
The simple fact is the Government is exploiting the claims about sick kids and the hospital’s reputation for its own ends.
Labor planned, funded and half-built the children’s hospital before getting turfed out of office. It was a long and politically taxing process. So it has always riled them that the Newman government got to cut the ribbon and pick the hospital’s name.
It is as simple and as puerile as that.
The Government doesn’t seem to care about trashing Lady Cilento’s reputation in the process.
Never mind that she smashed the glass ceiling during her time by graduating in medicine. Early in her career she was referred to as a “lady medical officer”.
She had views about homosexuality that are totally unacceptable by today’s standard.
But Lady Cilento shook up the conservative and male-dominated medical fraternity.
She was loved by generations of mothers for the advice she gave, urged fathers to be at births rather than on the booze, and advocated to legalise abortion, something our politicians still haven’t managed.
Yet, just to satisfy a few bruised egos and to win a base political game, the Palaszczuk Government will strip Lady Cilento of the honour of having the hospital named after her.
This is hubris.
Despite ongoing problems with the hospital’s capacity, the Government is prepared to suck millions of dollars from its budget to rebadge everything.
Anyone who thinks changing the hospital name won’t create significant costs is a first-class fool.
More than $13,000 was spent emblazoning just one sign with former deputy premier Terry Mackenroth’s name before the Government was embarrassed into ditching the idea of hanging it at Suncorp Stadium.
Just imagine what it would cost to design and install new signage throughout an entire hospital, as well as replace everything else.
Despite Miles’s po-faced promise about consultation, health bureaucrats have already crunched the numbers. But they’re reluctant to reveal them.
Queensland Health director-general Michael Walsh offered this mealy mouthed excuse at Budget estimates this week about why he couldn’t provide a figure.
“If the name is changed to Queensland Children’s Hospital, then potentially only some of the signage would need to be replaced because ‘children’s hospital’ remain the last two aspects of the name,” Walsh offered.
So the letter count would mean vastly different costs? Really?
What are they planning to do – use giant tins of white-out to paint over the words “Lady” and “Cilento”?
If having a person’s name attached to a hospital is confusing, what about the Princess Alexandra Hospital just up the road?
She’s a largely unknown royal, who at last count, was 52nd in line for the throne.
And she doesn’t even go by the name Princess Alexandra any more.
So why not change the name to South Brisbane Hospital, which until 1956, was exactly what it was called?
There’s no real need because no-one is confused about the hospital’s public role or its reputation, which has been cemented by deeds of its staff, not the name that adorns the front door.
The Government might argue that if one family is confused about the children’s hospital, then the name change is worthwhile.
However it didn’t adopt that approach two years ago when it dropped the word “public” from the name of the new Sunshine Coast hospital because it wasn’t necessary.
Miles’ predecessor Cameron Dick said people had the wits to decipher whether a hospital was public or private.
“Since 1923, when Labor created the public hospital system, public hospitals have been an integral part of healthcare in Queensland and have needed no formal introduction,” Dick said in 2015.
“It goes without saying that local hospitals managed by local Hospital and Health Services are public facilities.”
He was right.
It also goes without saying that the Lady Cilento Children’s Hospital is a hospital for all kids, regardless of the story that Labor and a few of its friends in the medical fraternity are trying to spin.
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