Mayor Appeals For Public Support

July 15, 2015

South Burnett Mayor Wayne Kratzmann has issued a public appeal for the South Burnett community to get behind the push to save the South Burnett Private Hospital from closure.

The Mayor wants to collect 5000 signed submissions by next Wednesday to present to State Health Minister Cameron Dick, Federal Health Minister Sussan Ley and the Darling Downs Hospital Board to prompt them to take urgent action on the matter.

“This is not about money,” Mayor Kratzmann told this morning’s packed Council meeting.

“This is about people’s lives.”

Mayor Kratzmann said he had been working “day and night” to find a new operator to take over the hospital for the past eight weeks, ever since he first became aware that Pulse Health were going to pull out of the area.

He warned that a new operator must be found by September 30.

And if that didn’t happen, it was unlikely the hospital would ever reopen.

In a long and passionate speech, the Mayor said the demise of the hospital had been largely caused by Kingaroy’s public hospital poaching the private hospital’s clients in order to “bump up its figures” and put pressure on the State Government to build a new public hospital in the region.

However, he said the State now had a Government “of a different colour” and the chances of getting a new Kingaroy Hospital in the foreseeable future were unlikely.

The Mayor warned that if the Private Hospital closed, he believed Kingaroy Hospital would be unlikely to be able to cope with the additional workload this would cause, and people would die as a result.

He said that – to date – he had been unable to get a face-to-face meeting with Federal Health Minister Sussan Ley or to convince senior health bureaucrats of the critical need to keep the Private Hospital running.

But he thought compelling evidence of overwhelming community support would convince decision makers the situation was critical and prompt them to act.

He asked all local media to bring the campaign to public attention, and all residents to fill in and return a signed submission to their nearest Council office by next Wednesday.

A 50-copy submission form in Microsoft Word format can be downloaded by clicking here

Individuals need only sign and return one copy of the one-page letter.

But the Mayor has asked anyone who belongs to a club, society, sporting group or similar organisation to print off all 50 copies, take them to the next meeting they attend and ask other members to sign them, too.

Update: Late this afternoon the Council also released an online form for the benefit of anyone who might find it difficult to get to a Council office over the coming week. The form can be accessed on this page of their website.

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Mayor Wayne Kratzmann’s Speech (23 minutes)

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• Mayor Off To Brisbane For Hospital Talks
• Mayor Gutted Over Hospital Closure
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