Randwick Labor councillors block council allocating $2000 to support children’s hospital rally

Rally organisers calling Labor to fulfil an election promise and restore full cardiac services to Sydney Children’s Hospital have been handed a major blow after three Sydney councillors blocked $2000 and council services being used.

The Sydney Children’s Hospital in Randwick. Picture: Toby Zerna

Rally organisers calling Labor to fulfil an election promise and restore full cardiac services to Sydney Children’s Hospital at Randwick were handed a major blow after Sydney councillors blocked $2000 and council services being used.

Almost 80,000 people have signed a petition by Debbie Issi, who said she “won’t give up” until other children are afforded the same opportunities as her daughter Alexia who suffered from severe influenza infection and benefited from the hospital’s specialist services, which were cut more than four years ago.

Randwick councillors overwhelmingly supported allocating $2000 for the NSW Nurses and Midwives’ Assocation’s rally scheduled for Saturday at High Cross Park.

The council also voted in favour of providing public announcements and staging, flyers and banners, as well as promoting the event on social media.

However, less than 24 hours after the vote, Randwick Mayor Philipa Veitch said she was “incredibly disappointed” to find out three Labor councillors – Dylan Parker, Alexandra Luxford and Marea Wilson – “have once again” blocked support for the rally held by the NSW Nurses and Midwives’ Association, through a rescission motion, which won’t be heard until next week.

“[The] council and community have overwhelmingly thrown their support behind the restoration … [there has been] three mayoral minutes, and a rally coming up on Saturday … with a large crowd expected,” she said.

Randwick Mayor Philipa Veitch. Picture: Mark Bond

“The rally will go on regardless and I hope everyone in our community will come in numbers to show their support. We need to send Labor a loud and clear message that we won’t let up until they keep their election promise.”

It followed months of calls from health care workers, politicians and parents such as Ms Issi, who’ve asked NSW Health Minister Ryan Park to follow through with Labor’s election promise to reinstate the pediatric cardiac services to the children’s hospital.

It was sparked by a letter, written by Mr Park, to the chair of the Senior Medical Staff Council to indicate medium-complexity surgery, including bypass surgery, would not be performed at Randwick.

Intensive care and anaesthetic specialist Dr John Awad, who has long-campaigned for the services to be restored, previously said the hospital received 75 per cent of the state’s critically ill children that need to be transported to a pediatric ICU.

Ms Veitch’s previous mayoral minute had a similar fate, with the three Labor councillors blocking her from writing a letter to request a meeting with Mr Park. A further meeting was called, and the rescission motion was voted down.

She said it was “disappointing” she was yet to receive a reply from the minister because she was contacting him “in good faith”.

Debbie Issi and her daughter Alexia. Her Change.org petition has gathered almost 80,000 signatures.

Debbie Issi’s daughter Alexia at the children’s hospital in Randwick.

While Ms Issi has been disappointed with the fallout from Labor’s backflip of its election promise to reinstate the services to the hospital, she said the sheer amount of signatures showed it had “obviously touched a lot of people’s hearts”.

“I’ve had a few people contact me via Facebook, and there has been similar situations as us and I don’t know them from a bar of soap,” she said.

“Just hearing about … this being taken away from the general public, it’s just shattered everyone.”

Ms Issi will speak at this Saturday’s rally at 10am and will be joined by family and friends, saying while “we’re [nobody’s] … we’ve got voices and hopefully we get our messages across”.