In a callous move, Labor’s Health Minister has scrapped a heated hydrotherapy pool for the Childers community, Member for Burnett Stephen Bennett said today.
Mr Bennett had supported a community-led campaign and had promised the $300,000 hydrotherapy pool as part of his ongoing desire to revitalise frontline health services in regional Queensland.
He said he was bitterly disappointed to hear of the new Labor Health Minister’s decision to back away from a fully costed commitment to fund the hydrotherapy pool in Childers, which he believed was politically motivated.
“It’s a malicious decision by Labor. The people of Isis are victims of a nasty political game,” Mr Bennett said.
“The Health Minister has turned his back on the Childers community and shown a complete lack of regard for this community.
“The Labor Health Minister has made a lot of noise lately about supporting vital community-based preventative health services – services which reduce the rate of hospitalisation and take the pressure of our hospital system.
“Yet at the first opportunity he had to deliver such services to our local community he has failed.”
Labor’s decision to scrap the Childers hydrotherapy pool comes on the back of a move to axe the hugely successful Wait Time Guarantee.
Mr Bennett said it was blatantly clear the Health Minister Cameron Dick was playing politics with patient wellbeing and urged him to reverse his decision.
“The results are in – more Queensland patients are getting elective surgery on time thanks to the Wait Time Guarantee,” he said.
“In February, the first month of the Wait Time Guarantee, the Bundaberg Base Hospital posted outstanding results. 100 percent of patients received their surgery on time across all categories – urgent, semi-urgent and non-urgent.
“I cannot understand why Labor would want to scrap Australia’s first surgery guarantee, particularly when it is already delivering for patients.”
“These results speak for themselves, the Wait Time Guarantee is working, patients are receiving necessary surgery on time,” he said.
Mr Bennett urged Minister Dick to reverse his decision and put patients first.
12 March 2015