Canned Mann’s land ‘was right place’ for facility
A LONG-TIME campaigner is lamenting the loss of Mann’s Farm as a potential site for a southern hospital site.
Fran Lindsay, a former Cairns city councillor, has been crusading for years to retain the 22ha block for future health care for the city’s south- ern corridor. She said she was disappointed that it now appeared to have been ruled out.
“I believe people settled down here, bought properties in the hope that the hospital will go ahead here, with future jobs for themselves, as well,” she said.
“The community would have been looking for it as well.
“It would have fitted in well with Edmonton’s town centre, with bus links.”
While the Palaszczuk Government is still planning a health precinct for the area, Ms Lindsay said Mann’s Farm had offered easy access to most of the area’s growing population.
“I just think this is the right place to have a hospital,” she said. “I’ve never supported relying on the Cairns public hospital on the Esplanade.
“People in this area will not be able to get in there in any type of flooding, or any type of emergency.”
Queensland Treasurer and Mulgrave MP Curtis Pitt has also, for years, been campaigning to have a second hospital established on the site of Mann’s Farm.
He has said another major health facility for Cairns would offer back-up should the city be threatened by a disaster, such as cyclone Yasi in 2011.
The Category 5 storm resulted in the evacuation of Cairns Hospital, the largest peacetime evacuation of a hospital in Queensland history.