To your health
LAST week began with a surge of optimism as I read Business Editor Dave Cairns’ stories on the expansion and innovation of Geelong academia and local businesses.
But by Thursday I was wondering what was going wrong as Healthscope announced the closure of the 107-bed Geelong Private Hospital and local unemployment hit 6.6 per cent, well above state and national averages.
And on Saturday some of the optimism returned as the State Government announced a $10 million investment to investigate transforming Geelong Private into a new Barwon Health maternity and paediatric hospital.
While the Healthscope decision was not entirely unexpected — this newspaper has run stories pointing to the possible detrimental impact the expansion of St John of God Hospital and opening of the Epworth Hospital could have on Geelong Private — the quick reaction of Premier Daniel Andrews certainly took people by surprise.
“We’re planning for the establishment of a world-class women’s and children’s hospital that will give Geelong families the full suite of services they need lose to home,” the Premier said on Friday.
Initially, more than 290 jobs were to be lost because of the closure, but even before the Premier’s commitment, Friday’s Addy quoted State Minister for Health, Jill Hennessy, as saying Barwon Health would create 117 jobs for nursing, allied health, administration and patient services assistants.
Additionally, University Hospital uses Geelong Private’s operating theatres to supplement its theatres and reduce elective surgery waiting list and plans for this to continue.
An outlet of its imaging business, BMI, also operates from the site and this too will remain.
Geelong’s population growth is booming — the G21 region increased from 285,321 people in 2011 to 315,240 in 2016, up 29,919 — and more than two-thirds live in the City of Greater Geelong.
According to G21, the Geelong Regional Alliance, in the 12 months from the 2016 census to 2017, the regional estimated population growth was 7732 people to 322,972.
I believe Barwon Health will not only expand in to what is now Geelong Private, but also in the not too distant future will need to build a long-awaited public hospital in the northern suburbs.
It is not only population growth that will bring this about, but the increasing number of people who are opting out of private health insurance because it is too expensive. This too adds to pressures on the public health system.
Which brings me back to my concerns relating to the high level of unemployment in our region.
At 6.6 per cent, it is high — and youth unemployment will be much higher if history is a guide — but we have been here before, as recently as 2014-15. But by the first quarter of 2016 the rate had fallen from 6.2 per cent to 5 per cent.
It was as high as 8.2 per cent in 2014.
The Geelong Region Innovation and Investment Fund, a joint Commonwealth and State initiative, was a major and positive influence back then and can still be used.
The City of Greater Geelong’s Enterprise Geelong, plus the Committee for Geelong and G21, Deakin University and the Gordon Institute of TAFE as well as industry groups, continue to lobby and seek new businesses to create employment opportunities.
But locally new small business groups have appeared such as Runway, ICT Geelong, Geelong Entrepreneurs, Creative Geelong and others encouraging hi-tech “start-ups” and/or providing meeting places to stimulate new initiatives.
Through them a new generation of potential business leaders are being encouraged to bring economic change to Geelong and will play important roles in overcoming the challenges of change.