WIN FOR WRLHD

The parliamentary inquiry into my Bill to split us away from the Murrumbidgee Local Health District has handed down its report, and it is sending the Bill to a vote on the floor of Parliament.

For years we have been told that running our hospitals out of Wagga Wagga, hours from most of the towns it covers, is good enough. This report shows it is not. It lays out cancer survival rates well below the national average, patients with broken bones driven hours to Wagga and left waiting days, a palliative care service downgraded to a phone line, a maternity unit short 14 midwives, and a brand new Griffith hospital that still has an unopened rehab ward and no MRI machine.

When Griffith City Council surveyed the town, only 2.8 per cent wanted to keep things as they are, and our own doctors voted unanimously to break away.

This is why we need our own Western Riverina Local Health District, run by people who actually live here. Now it is up to every member of Parliament to listen to the people who put them there.