Staff at Hornsby Hospital are hoping to secure 100,000 signatures for a petition calling for the ageing facility to be rebuilt.

More than 12,000 people have already put their names to a petition that was launched in Hornsby Mall the week before Christmas.

The campaign, led by vascular surgeon and chair of the Medical Staff Council, Dr Richard Harris, called for support from doctors and nurses, Pink Ladies and the general public and received television and radio coverage.

The petition states medical, nursing and allied health staff at Hornsby Ku-ring-gai Hospital work under “appalling conditions’’.

But despite these difficulties, patients are provided with the highest quality care.

It calls on the government to “rectify problems that have been steadily deteriorating for decades’’ and rebuild the hospital.

But Hornsby State Liberal MP Judy Hopwood said the NSW Labor Government had no money to rebuild Hornsby Hospital. She said, however, that the outrage was justified and the campaign should
continue.

“The older design ward areas are too small for patients to be cared for in a modern system and the operating theatres provide many challenges to medical, nursing and other staff in the performance of their roles,’’ Mrs Hopwood said.

“I totally support the doctor-initiated petition calling on the NSW Labor Government to rebuild a hospital that in facility terms is 85 per cent behind expectations of patients in 2009.

I have signed the petition, have sent it out for residents to distribute and have it in my electorate office so constituents can also access it.”

www.hornsbyadvocate.com.au
5 January 2010

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