· Labor’s latest RHH plan is a short-term solution

· Even Labor says it is still committed to a $2 billion new hospital some time down the track

· The Liberal Plan for a New Generation Royal Hobart Hospital continues to show the leadership and vision that Tasmanians deserve

Labor’s latest plan for the Royal is a short-term fix necessitated by the lack of proper maintenance of the facility in recent years.

And the State Government is still planning to build a new $2 billion hospital when economic conditions improve.

There is no coherent strategy from the government on the Royal.

In 2006, the State Government said it was committed to rebuilding the Royal from the inside out and said plans to build a new hospital on a greenfield site would be a “massive waste of money.”

Later that year it announced it would build a new $1 billion hospital anyway – on the Hobart waterfront. In the face of massive public opposition and leadership from the Liberals, as we presented a visionary proposal for a New Generation Royal Hobart Hospital on the existing site – the government then backflipped again and cancelled plans for a waterfront hospital.

But while the Premier and Deputy Premier said that a $1.5 billion-$2 billion hospital was not affordable right now, they said were still committed to a new Royal when economic conditions improved and that $100 million would be spent maintaining the current hospital until then.

Their proposals to spend $20M each year renovating the existing facility for the next 5 years is no substitute for a rebuild.

A few extra beds here and there will not even meet its own projections of a 47% increase in demand at the hospital.

The Liberals are committed to our plans for a New Generation Royal Hobart Hospital that would create a hospital that is 60% operationally larger after just stage one. That stage could be completed in three years.

The Liberals have also released longer-term plans for the hospital included a specialist women and children’s hospital and moving outpatient clinics off-site and it seems the Minister is also adopting these plans.

The reason why so much money is now required just to keep the Royal serviceable is because it was completely neglected by Labor over the last few years while it blindly pursued its waterfront hospital folly.

Labor’s Royal Hobart Hospital fiasco of recent years is proof positive of its lack of leadership and vision, and its failure to properly plan for the future.
Brett Whiteley MP Shadow Minister for Health and Human Services