Melton Council vows to keep fighting for a 24-hour hospital

UPDATE: Melton Leader readers have thrown their support behind calls for a 24-hour hospital in the city.

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UPDATED: MELTON Leaderreaders have thrown their support behind calls for a 24-hour hospital in the city.

As reported in yesterday’s Melton Leader, the Melton Residents’ Association decided at its meeting on October 1 not to pursue the long-running petition for the hospital.

Member David Axion said the upgrade to the Bacchus Marsh Hospital and the need for further population growth in Melton were behind the decision.

Melton resident John Southall, who has been pushing for the hospital for many years, said although he accepted the association’s decision, he would not be giving up the campaign and he hoped the council would also keep up the momentum.

Readers have since taken to Melton Leader’s Facebook page to voice their support for the hospital campaign.

They have gained the support of Matt DeLeon, an independent candiate for Melton in next month’s state election, who posted on his Facebook Page that if elected he would “lobby hard for a Melton hospital.”

“...electing an independent means we can negotiate for these services,” he wrote.

Some readers said Melton’s growth, the long distance to Sunshine and high volume of patients at Sunshine were among the reasons why Melton needed its own hospital.

But not everyone is convinced. Rebecca Jane Cranston said “there’s a lot of people who do not drive and struggle to get to a hospital.”

Elise Soderblom suggested Sunshine was usually on bypass for ambulances due to the high volume of people they get through there.

David O’Connor asked “with Western Health being within proximity to the Melton municipality, is another tertiary hospital really necessary?”

Others have also stated the nearby Bacchus Marsh and Melton Regional Hospital is a “country hospital” and not big enough or well equipped to meet the demands of both Melton and Moorabool.

But Djerriwarrh Health Services chief executive Bruce Marshall disagreed, saying the hospital is well positioned to provide a comprehensive range of services.

He said while not a tertiary hospital, it was far from a “country hospital”

“With the rapid population growth in the City of Melton and Moorabool Shire, it is expected that the Bacchus Marsh and Melton Regional Hospital will continue to grow its services as well as capacity.’’ Bruce Marshall.

He said the State Government’s $14.5 million allocation to build and relocate Melton community based service to the Melton Health site also strengthened the capacity to serve the local community.

Council chief executive Kelvin Tori said the council remained committed to the establishment of a 24-hour public hospital in Melton, but the lack of data had been a barrier in its negotiations with the Government.

He said the council had been “operating primarily on anecdotal evidence with no documented and detailed evidence base which clearly demonstrates the need and the type of hospital that should be established in the City of Melton”.

He said the council was seeking funding so it could undertake a comprehensive needs study to provide evidence-based data that a 24-hour hospital was desperately needed.

Mr Tori said applications for funding to undertake the study had so far been unsuccessful but the council was continuing the search for other sources of funding.

For more see next week’s Melton Leader.