Pride in our Local Hospital

One of the things I’m proudest about from Labor’s time in Government is the massive Commonwealth investment in the $145 million Logan Hospital Expansion Project due to open in September.

I’d like to thank the director, staff and management of the hospital for inviting Catherine King, Labor’s Shadow Minister for Health and I to tour the remarkable new Emergency Department and Children’s Inpatient Unit that was made possible by that investment.

The new wing will give local families confidence that they can get the healthcare they and their kids need in the local area, without going to the further away hospitals in the city.

Labor’s record investment in health and hospitals is a mark of great pride for me, and stands in stark contrast with the Abbott Government’s $50 billion in cuts to hospitals over the next decade. Over the next four years, I’m advised the Metro South Health Network, which includes the Logan Hospital, will lose $26 million in funding.

Some members of the Coalition Government try to say that these aren’t cuts because the hospitals had not already received the money. In reality, the cuts are there in black and white in the budget, and are part of the slash and burn approach of both the Abbott and Newman Governments.

I’m proud of Labor’s history of investment in hospitals and of the work of our local nurses, doctors and support staff – work that Labor invested in and will be made a bit harder as a result of these cuts.

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