Health Service’s cuts are indefensible

IT has been whispered in the corridors of our Northern Rivers hospitals for months, yet North Coast Area Health continually denied it was going to cut any frontline staff. Now the moment of truth has finally arrived.

To cut 100 jobs, two-thirds nursing staff, from our region’s hospitals is criminal.

What will this awful truth mean to the region’s residents – you and me – who may have the bad luck to fall ill in the future and need nursing care in one of our local hospitals?

With the terrible mismanagement of our health services by the New South Wales Government and North Coast Area Health Service we have a health shortfall of about $54 million, even with the last round of Federal handouts.

Now what everyone feared would happen is on the table, and this is just the beginning. Another 150 job cuts are still to be announced.

For North Coast Area Health Service chief executive Chris Crawford to suggest the service can provide the same service with fewer staff is beyond understanding.

It might certainly improve the efficiency of our health services in causing distress, discomfort and even death to patients through neglect.

We will soon see more frontline staff leaving the health service because they can no longer deal with the ineptitude and bad management.

We, the residents of the Northern Rivers, deserve better than this for our tax dollars, and so do our health workers.

It is time the Federal Government stepped in and took over NSW Health.

 
What do you think about the cuts? Is the health of the North Coast being left behind?