New hospital not patch ups

People questioning the need for a new Hospital must not have seen the enormous pressure our service is under.

Last week my son had a fall at day care suffering a heavy knock to the head. We rushed to the emergency department only to find they were at full stretch, doing their best with an overflow of patients that they just can’t accommodate.

In the more than two hours we waited to be seen, patients who had been there longer than I instead opted to leave and seek help elsewhere.

At the same time we were waiting, there were three ambulances waiting outside to drop patients that were also forced to sit and wait meaning they weren’t available to the community.

Staff at our emergency department are outstanding and the commentary by some in recent letters to the editor are so short sighted about the limitations of the current hospital and how it will cope when our population doubles over the coming decade.

Of all the comments I have seen by candidates in this election, only Gary Blackwood, Carlo Ierfone and Guss Lambden have openly backed a new West Gippsland Hospital.

I’ll be putting Labor and the Greens last given their lack of understanding about what our community needs for the long term. It needs a new hospital on the site between Drouin and Warragul, we cannot keep patching up the current hospital forever.

Stephanie Green, Warragul German Kaiser held a War Council in 1912 at which military options were considered and the Chief of the General Staff, Helmuth von Moltke, said, amongst other things —“I consider a war is inevitable - the sooner, the better.”

If governments are going to be asked to apologise for war attrition, we could set an example by asking the Australian government to apologize for its role in the Vietnam conflict. After all Vietnam never threatened Australia, yet we joined America in that bloody conflict that saw about two million civilians killed on both sides, over 500 Australian soldiers and over 58,000 American soldiers also killed.

Nor has the Middle East ever threatened this country, yet we are still engaged in that conflict, seventeen years later — an example, perhaps, of political ineptitude? Robert Dunlop, Warragul

There were plenty of incompetent commanders on both sides. Who should apologise to whom? The British and French were so traumatised by the war that they couldn’t comprehend why Adolf Hitler would want to do it all again.

Unfortunately the same socio/political forces that caused WW1 were at work in the lead up to WW2, with the addition of anger and blaming somebody else. Gordon Bedford, Warragul of people, both in the country and in the city, want the logging of our native forests to stop.

What makes Noojee special is that it's surrounded by old mountain ash rainforest. VicForests admits that the vast bulk of the forest to be logged is earmarked for Maryvale where it will be turned into paper by Australian Paper which is wholly owned by Japan's Nippon Paper Industries.

Let's not lose sight of the fact that all profits will go to Japan if the slope next to Noojee is clearfelled. Japan will benefit; and Noojee and the Baw Baw Shire will be the long term losers.

Come on Baw Baw councillors, get with the program and start listening to the majority; advocate to protect what makes our region special and protect the shire's economy.

Gaye Trevan, Noojee