Update on Northern Beaches Keep it Public campaign

Thank you for your continued interest in campaigning to keep the new Northern Beaches Hospital public.  Despite the fact that the government has announced that Healthscope is the successful tenderer to build and run the new facility, we will continue to campaign to put pressure on the Baird Government to keep this hospital public.

At our community forum at Dee Why RSL on 1 October, we put on notice that we were planning a community activity on 15 November which would demonstrate to the government exactly how concerned people on the Northern Beaches are about the privatisation of their new hospital.

After talking to many people living on the Northern Beaches, it has become evident that there is still a lot of misinformation about the new facility and what this privatisation will actually mean. Many people on the Northern Beaches are extremely unhappy about losing Manly Public Hospital, having Mona Vale Hospital services downgraded and replaced by a privately built and operated hospital.

In light of this we believe we must continue to work with people on the Northern Beaches  in order to disseminate information more widely.  To do this we need your help. While the Association has been talking to many community groups and will continue to do so, we are more than willing to come out and visit groups of 10 or more people about the campaign.  If you are able to gather friends, relatives and neighbours at your home, cafe, church group, mothers clubs, men’s sheds or your bridge or sports club, for example, we would love to talk to your group.  We anticipate that the meetings would run for at least 30 minutes.

We also believe the government is planning to roll out the privatisation of other health facilities in NSW such as the new Maitland Hospital and the privatisation of surgical services at the planned Byron Bay Hospital.

If you would like to hold a meeting, or to discuss this campaign further, please ring Lynne Ridge on 8595 1234 or email lr****@ns****.au

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