Lady Cilento Children’s Hospital name change slammed by son
THE son of Lady Phyllis Cilento has spoken out after the Queensland Government confirmed it would rename the children’s hospital that commemorates her.
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THE son of Lady Phyllis Cilento has questioned the Queensland Government’s motives over a push to change the name of the state’s only stand-alone children’s hospital, saying it will cost taxpayers “millions and millions” of dollars.
Health Minister Steven Miles yesterday opened a one-month consultation period to consider whether the Lady Cilento Children’s Hospital should become the Queensland Children’s Hospital, as it was known in the planning stages.
Then premier Campbell Newman and health minister Lawrence Springborg named the hospital after Lady Cilento while they were in government.
“Lady Cilento was arguably the leading female clinician in the last 100 years and the Labor Party want to erase her place in history,” Mr Newman said.
David Cilento, 82, the only one of Lady Cilento’s six children still alive, said changing the name would dishonour a person who did so much for Queensland and Australia.
Doctors say the name confuses many parents, who believe the hospital is privately operated. They have also said the name was struggling to be recognised by the international medical fraternity.
Dr Miles said he and the Government supported a name change, but he wanted to gauge community opinion before moving to rename the hospital.
Dr Cilento described the push to change the name as “totally unnecessary”.
“I haven’t found anyone who thought it was a private hospital, and there are so many other hospitals in other cities honouring people,” he said.
“We’ve got the Prince Charles, the Princess Alexandra and QEII in Brisbane, Adelaide’s got the Lyell McEwin Hospital and Perth’s got the Fiona Stanley and Sir Charles Gairdner hospitals.
“The excuse given that the public thinks the Lady Cilento Children’s Hospital is a private hospital is a big strange. It seems to me there is some other agenda here.”
Dr Cilento described his mother, who graduated in medicine in Adelaide 100 years ago this year, as a pioneering female doctor of international fame who challenged the patriarchal norms of paediatric thinking at the time.
“They were all male paediatricians who had rigid rules, and she was a mother of six herself,” he said.
“She was the doctor who introduced fathers into the labour ward here, much to the horror of the obstetricians. She bucked the system.
“She was apolitical. She had no interest in politics. She was interested in the welfare of children and mothers.”
Dr Miles yesterday dismissed criticism about the move, insisting Lady Cilento, who died in 1987, would still be honoured in some way.
“Let me say at the outset that there is no intention here to disparage the name or recognition of Lady Cilento,” he told a Budget Estimates hearing.
“I have tasked the director-general to meet with the Cilento family during this consultation process to identify some other appropriate way within the hospital or precinct to recognise her contribution.”
Health director-general Michael Walsh said the department had considered the potential cost of the name change but he could not name a figure, insisting it was still unclear whether the name would change and what it would change to.
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