BALLAN Community Hospital desperately needs an upgrade, the hospital's chief executive officer Glenn Rowbotham declared yesterday. It could, perhaps, start with increasing the height of the ceiling.
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The towering Victorian Opposition Leader, Ted Baillieu, who in his socks stands an impressive six feet seven (200.66 centimetres), very nearly took his eye out as he strode along the little bush hospital's corridor yesterday, narrowly dodging a protruding metal bracket attached to an overhang.
Mr Baillieu was at the hospital to pledge to ''fix the problems in rural and regional health services created by 11 years of Labor neglect and failure''.
He came armed with the promise of $70 million for regional health, which comes on top of $800 million already promised by the Coalition.
Back in Melbourne, Premier John Brumby was announcing his big-bang $1.5 billion for health. Mr Baillieu's timing, you might say, was an attempt at a bit of a poke in the eye for the government as the election bidding war warms up.
He wasn't, however, about to be drawn into a point-by-point critique of the government's plans, insisting he wasn't in possession of the details and besides ''if the government was genuine, it should have made these commitments long ago'', rather than three weeks out from the election.
Besides, Big Ted was out for the country vote, possibly recalling that his Coalition had spent 11 years in opposition because the last Liberal premier, Jeff Kennett, was perceived to have ignored the bush. There were more health promises to come from the opposition, he said.
Ballan, a small town on the path from Melbourne to Ballarat, is experiencing the sort of pressures that are inevitable in the fast-changing growth corridor. In a year, the number of patients presenting for treatment with GPs had risen 80 per cent, Mr Rowbotham said, and demands on the emergency stabilisation unit had grown 20 per cent in two years.
But the hospital was built in the 1960s and was in need of urgent renovation and refurbishment. Mr Baillieu noted he'd promised $2 million to upgrade the hospital while ''John Brumby has declined to say that rural hospitals will not be closed''.
The opposition's latest offer includes $56 million over four years to be used at the discretion of rural and regional hospitals for smaller ''fix-up'' capital works; $2.4 million to help train doctors in rural health, $2.2 million for bush nursing, $5 million to increase the number of midwives, $1 million to help rural doctors update their skills and $1.6 million to help doctors relocate to country areas. There would also be $1.8 million for scholarships for rural medical students and $220,000 to collect data to shape maternity care programs.
No mention of money to raise the height of ceilings.
