Critical need for hospital
JUST four years after it opened, the Gold Coast University Hospital is headed for “paralysis” unless another facility can be built in the city’s fast-growing northern suburbs.
The warning by a former MP and GP is backed by hospital insiders aware that the Coast cannot afford to wait a decade for another mid-range hospital to be built.
The hospital’s emergency department recently became the second busiest in Australia and births in the past 12 months have increased to 5129, up from 3787 five years ago.
Dr Alex Douglas, the former Gaven MP, told the Gold Coast Bulletin: “They need to have a new hospital by 2021 at the latest. It probably should be at Coomera. It should become a major birthing unit.”
A new hospital would cost about $800 million, start with 200 beds and within nine months need to have double that amount, Dr Douglas said.
“You need to take the load off the Parklands ED. You would want to try to get their receptions down by 30 per cent. Their growth is too high,” he said.
Dr Douglas, from the Opposition benches in 2005, first warned Labor of a looming health crisis.
In just 10 years to June 2011, the suburbs of Pacific Pines, Upper Coomera and Gaven increased by almost 30,000 making it the fastest growing region in Queensland.
A year later Dr Douglas, in a report in the Bulletin, said: “We have to start planning a new obstetrics hospital, either on the corner site of the hospital or at Upper Coomera.’’
Dr Judy Searle, an experienced obstetrician who is standing for Labor in Southport, said Queensland Health had begun planning for a new hospital.
A member of the Gold Coast Hospital Board, Dr Searle has stood down during the election to campaign on a platform of increasing frontline services.
“I’m scared if the Libs got in again that there would be cuts to those services. That just can’t happen,” she said.
“I did a shift in Emergency (recently). I saw what pressure they’re under. We couldn’t afford to lose one more health service provider in that front line.”