Nepean Hospital funding cut claim is all “lies”, says MP

PENRITH state Liberal MP Stuart Ayres has called out Labor over “lies” about Nepean Hospital funding cuts.

Nepean Hospital’s upgrade planning “has been going for 12 months,” says Penrith state MP Stuart Ayres.

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PENRITH state Liberal MP Stuart Ayres has called out Labor over “lies” about Nepean Hospital funding cuts.

“Since 2011, Nepean Hospital has had a 40 per cent increase to its funding and staffing has increased by 12pc,” said Mr Ayres, who has held the seat since the State by-election in 2010.

“Labor cannot point to one single reduction in funding since I was the member.”

Lindsay member-elect, Labor’s Emma Husar with Opposition leader Bill Shorten talking to voters outside Bennett Road Public School, Colyton on election day. Picture: Jenny Evans

He was making reference to Labor’s federal election campaign in Lindsay, which hinged on protecting Medicare, fighting cuts to health funding, and the promise of $88 million in Commonwealth funding for Nepean Hospital’s Stage 4 upgrade to “start immediately”.

Mr Ayres said: “Bathurst (Hospital) is what happens when you push money out the door before you do the planning.”

Bathurst’s 2008 upgrade was finished early by the Labor party but came under fire for numerous things including too-small resuscitation bays, an unsafe rooftop playground for children, and unreliable communication systems in operating theatres.

Nepean Hospital’s Stage 4 upgrade planning “has been going for 12 months,” Mr Ayres said.

Health Infrastructure is working closely with the Nepean Blue Mountains Local Health District, including doctors, to deliver the plan “as fast as we can”, he said.

Penrith state Liberal MP Stuart Ayres in Nepean Hospital’s neonatal ward handing over a new cot. Picture: Matthew Sullivan

The 2016-17 State Budget gave $1 million for planning, on top of $1 million already allocated.

“Because health affects everyone, that’s the one (part of our campaign) that hit,” Lindsay’s new member-elect Emma Husar said.

Neither party denies services at the hospital are in high demand, including a 30 per cent rise in the number of people presenting at the emergency department in the past five years.

“There’s no doubt Nepean has to grow and expand, but we have to do that properly,” Mr Ayres said.

Opened in 2012, the Stage 3 $139 million redevelopment of Nepean Hospital included a new $44 million mental health facility, a $20 million carpark — and $8 million to improve oral health services, “which is the third largest in NSW,” Mr Ayres said.

Stuart Ayres MP with Rebecca Ellen, 25, of Cranebrook, who was the first baby for in Nepean Hospital’s Neonatal Intensive Care Unit.

Then Lindsay Labor candidate Emma Husar outside Nepean Hospital with union members, protesting health funding cuts.

Under his stewardship, the hospital also received a new humidicrib and the state’s first da Vinci surgical robot. The $5 million Lemongrove Community Health Centre was opened in the health district.

Ms Husar and new Macquarie Labor MP Susan Templeman, whose electorate covers the Blue Mountains, have vowed to keep fighting for the hospital.

“People really care about Nepean Hospital, from the lower Blue Mountains down,” Ms Templeman said.

Said Ms Husar: “You can’t have ‘jobs and growth’ (the Coalition’s policy) and have a really sick community who can’t go to work.”

NSW Health Minister Jillian Skinner, Penrith state Liberal MP Stuart Ayres, then Londonderry MP Bart Bassett, then Blue Mountains MP Roza Sage and Mulgoa MP Tanya Davies and hospital staff at the official opening of Nepean Hospital’s new multi-level parking facility in 2013.

Federal Labor said the scope of its redevelopment is drawn from The Nepean Blue Mountains Local Health District Asset Strategic Plan 2013-2023. Mr Ayres said so is his party’s.

The plan details all the perceived gaps in the capacity of facilities to deliver the increased volume of health care required to 2022, including the need for “more than 120 additional inpatient beds” before 2022.

Before the election, Turnbull’s Government promised to give the state’s hospitals an extra $2.9 billion but didn’t specify if Nepean would get a share of the pie.