The Batlow Adelong multi-purpose health service (MPS) has been allocated half a million dollars in the State Budget, but there is widespread disappointment construction won't take place in 2005/06 nor in all likelihood during the following year. The funds allocated this year are expected to be spent on finalising, the Value Management Study, a process which appeared to be well advanced up until last December when planning for the project carne to a grinding halt.
That coincided with the release of a document indicating the cost of the project would be double the original estimate of $5 million, with the matter referred back to State Treasury for further consideration.
The Value Management Study (VMS) is expected to settle on a site and design for the health facility, and hopefully see the release of final plans.
Last year NSW Health, in conjunction with the local MPS committee, appeared to have settled on the Batlow railway land site, being looked at as a greenfields location for a brand new building, as the preferred option.
However it now appears the government and NSW Health want to look at a number of other options once again.
MPS committee chairperson Janice Vanzella, told the Times she was not overly surprised that funds for the project in this year's Budget were limited to planning matters rather than construction.
"When planning stopped late last year there was still some work to be done and it was pretty obvious at that point there was no way construction would begin this year; it was simply too big a job to be done in the time remaining prior to the Budget,' she said.
"All of which is very disappointing for members of the committee who have been working very hard in the interim in a bid to further impress the government of the urgent need for this project.
'We assume the $500,000 is for completion of the Value Management Study, but have idea exactly how it will be spent. 'In some respect it appears to be a case of revisiting what we did last year, but in greater detail; it means there is still a job ahead of the committee which at its last meeting had resolved not to met again until it had something to do."
The proposal for the MPS is for a 24 bed facility with five acute beds and 19 residential aged care places. The latter section would include eight high care beds, one respite, and a 10 bed hostel.
National Party Member for Burrinjuck, Katrina Hodgkinson, said the budget was a cruel blow for those many local residents who had been working hard to provide adequate public health services for Batlow.
"The Batlow MPS was originally supposed to be opened in July 2003, yet successive Labor Budgets have completely failed to allocate the necessary funding," Ms Hodgkinson said.
"In the meantime Batlow Hospital staff are continuing to struggle with a ramshackle fibro building that is in worse condition than other hospital buildings that have already been decommissioned.
"I have strongly supported the Batlow MPS for the past six years, yet the Car Labor government has consistently failed to make good on their promises to the people of Batlow.
"The Carr Government has presided over area health services in southern NSW that are poorly managed, unresponsive to community concerns, unable to meet their debts and so blind that they don't understand that there is a problem.
"For more than ten years the residents of the Tumut region have been taxed to the hilt by the Sydney-centric Labor government and it's high time to give something back."
She said that without major funding from the latest Budget an opening date of 2006/07 would be virtually unachievable. In 2000 when the MPS was being strongly mooted, the government indicated it was budgeting for a number of such facilities in the State, and that Batlow could expect its MPS to proceed in 2002/03 along with other towns such as Junee and Berrigan.
As long ago as 1999 when the committee headed by Ian Sinclair conducted its tour around the state investigating the state of rural health facilities he indicated Batlow should be one of the first to be completed.
Yet the Batlow MPS has continued to suffer progressive delays, often the result of the many planning steps involved being spread over two financial years and Budget allocations - as has now happened with the Value Management Study. "It has been dragging on far too long which is very upsetting and disappointing," said Janice Vanzella.
"We had been told the quest for an MPS had to be community driven, and that is exactly what this has been from the word go. Yet we still seem to be quite a way off getting it to fruition.
Tumut & Adelong Times
May 27, 2005