GV HEALTH REDEVELOPMENT FUNDING
Dear Editor,
We held the positions of chair and deputy chair of the board of Goulburn Valley Health from August 2013 until June 2017. The major focus of the board under our leadership was the planning for the future redevelopment of the GV Health (GVH) hospital in Shepparton.
Up until 2013, successive boards of GVH had made significant efforts to redevelop the hospital but unfortunately met with little success. Our board decided to take a start from scratch approach and be pragmatic about getting the job done. The first step was to seek the advice of the senior bureaucrats within the Department of Health as to what was the most effective strategy to achieve the significant funding required for the full redevelopment of the hospital. The advice was simple – get the data together to demonstrate the need and get strong commitment from the local community for the project. The department helped fund the data gathering task and the board lobbied the local community. Over a period of around two years in depth studies on the health needs of the Goulburn Valley region serviced by GVH were completed. This work resulted in a Department of Health supported Service Plan which was then the foundation of the development of the Master Plan for the GVH hospital to meet the identified needs. A feasibility study was completed, then a schematic design and an indicative costing. This was a significant work by a huge number of managers and staff of GVH and well supported by the Department of Health.
As this work was continuing the community support for the redevelopment was wonderfully articulated by the Committee for Greater Shepparton and the Greater Shepparton City Council which both had the GVH redevelopment as the number one priority for capital funding in the lead up to the 2014 state election. By election time it was clear that GVH was very high, if not the highest priority, for capital works for the Department of Health, that the data demonstrated an overwhelming case for the redevelopment and the project was shovel ready!
All through this period the board worked closely with the Department of Health and made sure the process was kept on track and moving forward as GVH was getting busier and busier by the day.
Prior to the 2014 State Election the Napthine Coalition Government committed $75M towards the redevelopment of GVH as the full cost of the project had not been determined at this stage.
With the election of the Andrews Labor Government in 2014 everything was in place for the funding of the project. The funding provided was, at the time, around half of what was required for the full redevelopment. There was no commitment from the government for the funding for the full redevelopment.
In the article in local media on October 2, 2018 the Independent Member for Shepparton claims the credit for obtaining the funding for the GVH redevelopment was a result of her targeted political lobbying.
We believe that claim, without giving due recognition to the long term plans and detailed work completed by the many people, including the leadership provided by the executive and staff of GVH, the Committee for Greater Shepparton and the council, is disingenuous.
Yours sincerely,
Peter F Ryan
Bill Parsons
Shepparton
QUESTIONS REGARDING HAYFEVER AND ASTHMA
Dear Editor,
I read with interest the article about the Dookie pollen trap in The Adviser on Wednesday, October 3. I have a question regarding the beautiful Manchurian flowering pear trees that have been flowering for the last few weeks, planted by council as streetscape along nature strips in the Greater Shepparton area. Do they have an adverse effect on people who suffer with hayfever and asthma? People may not realise that they could be the cause of their suffering. Also, some have little fruit on them…would that attract fruit fly?
Some of your readers may have an answer to these questions.
Yours sincerely,
Karl Neuwirth
Mooroopna
