Residents may fix hospital
RESIDENTS of Coraki will raise the money themselves to fix the Campbell Hospital if the Northern NSW Local Health District won't.
The hospital has been closed since it sustained hail damage during a storm in September last year.
More than 100 people attended a meeting at Coraki yesterday where they committed to dig deep into their pockets to cover the cost of repairing the leaking hospital.
Committee chairman Gerard Criss drew a large round of applause when he said the residents of Coraki could raise the $17,400 to repair storm damage sustained by the beleaguered hospital.
"The structural engineer's report (on the hospital) confirms that the damage to the building is minor," he said.
"What is telling is that from the 39 items listed in the 'schedule of works', only the last two deals with the storm damage."
Mr Criss said the insurer would cover $99,200 "leaving $17,400 the Local Health District Board is responsible for due to a lack of maintenance done to the box gutter system".
"We could raise that money easily in our own community," he said.
Mr Criss even made the generous offer of matching any money raised dollar for dollar through the medical centre.
"That means the community only needs to raise $8700," he said.
Mr Criss said many of the items on the list of problems with the hospital needed to be looked into further.
"The list doesn't say when these items had become a problem, as some of them may have since been fixed," he said.
Questions from the floor included a query from Ronald 'Elvis' Roberts of Box Ridge who wanted to know where Chris Crawford was.
"I wanted to talk to Mr Crawford," he said.
One resident asked, even if the money was raised, what guarantee there was the hospital would open.
