{"id":124600,"date":"2015-10-22T00:14:17","date_gmt":"2015-10-21T14:14:17","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/southburnett.com.au\/news2\/?p=124600"},"modified":"2020-07-29T14:06:06","modified_gmt":"2020-07-29T04:06:06","slug":"petition-calls-for-new-hospital","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/southburnett.com.au\/news2\/2015\/10\/22\/petition-calls-for-new-hospital\/","title":{"rendered":"Petition Calls For New Hospital"},"content":{"rendered":"
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Kingaroy Hospital … in urgent need of an upgrade or being rebuilt, according to petitioners<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

October 21, 2015<\/strong><\/p>\n

Rural Medical Centres Limited – the company co-founded by South Burnett mayoral candidate Mike Brown – has launched an online petition calling for Kingaroy General Hospital to either be fixed or rebuilt.<\/p>\n

The petition is to Queensland Health Minister Cameron Dick, Premier Annastacia Palaszczuk, the Darling Downs Hospital and Health Services Board, and Member for Nanango Deb Frecklington.<\/p>\n

Rural Medical Centres Director Veronica McCarthy said regardless of whether or not the Private Hospital reopened, the Kingaroy General Hospital should be at the top of the list for upgrading yet it was still to be officially stamped and funded under both the current Labor or the previous LNP State governments.<\/p>\n

Ms McCarthy said State Member for Nanango Deb Frecklington MP said on her website in May 2015 that:\u00a0 \u201cOur former Government identified several rural and regional hospitals previously neglected by the Labor Government, and at the top of the list was Kingaroy Hospital. I will be urging the new Health Minister not to forget the regions, and put Kingaroy Hospital at the top of the capital works list as a matter of priority.\u201d<\/p>\n

Ms McCarthy said the World War II-era building was archaic and should be redeveloped.<\/strong><\/p>\n

She said Darling Downs Hospital and Health Services chairman Mike Horan had stated \u201cthe DDHHS as part of its submission to the Department of Health has advised that it would be prepared to allocate some of the accumulated surplus towards this project”.<\/p>\n

\u201cThis would be a start towards the State Government allocating the rest of the funding needed towards the new hospital,\u201d she said.<\/p>\n