Community
25 January, 2024
Call for second hospital
A GORDONVALE resident has launched a petition for a second hospital in Cairns – in the southern corridor – to take the pressure of the current Esplanade primary healthcare centre.
Michael Jenkins has gathered more than 570 signatures on the electronic version and has paper petitions available at businesses in the Gordonvale area.
The university student said the petition called for a new public hospital facility to be constructed to service the southern corridor of regional Cairns. It was registered on October 23 and closes on March 19.
He said the southern region of Cairns was growing, from 62,508 to 65,988 people.
Mr Jenkins said there was a need in the southern corridor of Cairns for a new public hospital facility, to provide a high level of health care, across a general array of health services to 23 suburbs.
“A new south Cairns base hospital would provide the solution to the overloaded health care system at the Cairns Hospital. The Cairns Hospital services a large area for specialist services,” he said.
The 30-year-old said he had spent five hours waiting for treatment in the Cairns Hospital emergency department and knew others who had faced similar circumstances.
“Some time ago there was a proposal for the Mann’s hospital (on the Mann family cane farmland) to be built in Edmonton but, unfortunately, the proposal fell through,” he said.
“I am currently campaigning for a hospital to be built between the region of Bentley Park and Gordonvale.”
Mr Jenkins said it could provide acute inpatient care, emergency care, mental health and alcohol and other drug services, outpatient care, prevention, primary and community care, Queensland Ambulance Service and sub and non-acute care.
Mulgrave MP Curtis Pitt said a former LNP government killed off the hospital proposal for the southern corridor and subsequently the Labor government built the Walker Rd facility at Edmonton which acted as an alternative facility for the delivery of critical care in the event of a natural disaster if Cairns Hospital was unable to function.
Normally the precinct provides community health services to meet the needs of an expanding local community, currently delivering renal dialysis and provides interim emergency needs of an expanding local community, if the Cairns Hospital emergency department is unable to. The facility also has a helipad and room to expand. He said there was a possibility of a second emergency department for Cairns and he hoped that it would be built in the southern corridor, but like a second hospital proposal, it would be up to health professionsls to decide, not MPs.
Mr Pitt said the newly-opened Cairns South Medicare Urgent Care Clinic, also in Walker Rd, offered walk-in free bulk-billed care to treat urgent non-life-threatening conditions that could be managed without a trip to the emergency department for those who could not wait for a regular appointment with a GP.
A government spokeswoman said “our government is committed to ensuring Queenslanders can access the health services they need, where they live”. “We are continually upgrading services in Far North Queensland and ongoing evaluations are carried out to assess demand and the viability of additional infrastructure and services,” she said.
