THIS year’s State Budget laid the foundations for a spectacular finish to a game-changing term.
The 2021-22 budget contained many highlights – multi-million-dollar support for our blockies in their fight against fruit fly, school funding for some of our smallest towns, a new fire station for Irymple and our very own campus of the Victorian Academy of Teaching and Leadership to name a few.
But perhaps the most significant was the $2 million to “finalise the masterplan and business case for a future redevelopment of Mildura Base Public Hospital”.
This is truly ground-breaking, because it is the critical precursor to securing the hundreds of millions of dollars we need to build a brand new hospital.
And our request is justified. The hospital building is grossly inadequate.
Doctors and nurses compete for space at overcrowded work stations. Parking is woefully inadequate. Patients lack privacy in dormitory style rooms.
When Mildura Base Hospital was returned to public management on September 15, 2021, after 20 years of failed privatisation, it was an exciting moment for all of us.
And we haven’t looked back. Recruitment is booming, staff morale is high, and the community feels valued.
But the truth is, my work on the hospital was only half-done. My next job was to secure the funding for a world-class facility.
The money for the new hospital is not yet in the bank, but there is a real possibility that by this time next year, it will be.
If we pull together, as I know we will, and our impressive hospital chief executive, Terry Welch, and talented chair, Mary Rydberg, and her team put their best foot forward in the planning process — and if I play my cards right in parliament (which I plan to) — there is a strong chance we will be able to pull this off.
What a moment that would be.
