Will the Clarence Valley see an upgrade of Grafton Base Hospital within the next three years or will it take a decade to commence?

Grafton Base Hospital is a 50-99 bed public health facility which offers health services to an est. 51,647 resident population in the Clarence Valley on the NSW North Coast and an additional annual tourist population which can reach or exceed 1 million visitors.

In the first quarter of 2019 ambulance arrivals at Grafton Hospital were up 11.5 per cent, emergency department presentations rose by 3 per cent, emergency presentations climbed by 4.2 per cent, hospital admissions increased by 14.9 per cent with acute admissions totalling 3,127 patients and the elective surgery waiting times continued to grow.

In that same quarter during the NSW state election campaign the Nationals MP for Clarence on behalf of the Berejiklian Coalition Government promised voters in the Clarence Electorate a much needed $263.8-million overhaul of Grafton Hospital.

At the time doubts were raised about the genuineness of this promise as it contained little detail.

Those doubts are now resurfacing……

The Daily Examiner, 21 June 2019, p.3:

A major hospital upgrade looks to be a while off as the Clarence Valley joins the long queue of regions promised big projects at the New South Wales election.

The $263million commitment to the Grafton Base Hospital redevelopment was made in the final weeks of the campaign in March and is just one of many major infrastructure promises outlined in the 2019-20 Budget Papers.

However, there there was no specific line item in the 2019-20 Budget and Nationals MP Chris Gulaptis was quick to point out it would take time.

“It’s not a line item as such as we are still in the very early planning stages but there is a commitment for works to commence during this term of government,” he said.

“In the meantime, consultation needs to occur between the LHD, clinicians and the community to ensure the redeveloped hospital is able to provide for the community into the future.”

Mr Gulaptis said he had received assurances from Premier Gladys Berejiklian, Treasurer Dominic Perrotet and Deputy Premier John Barilaro that all election commitments would be honoured and provided a letter from Health Minister Brad Hazzard responding to representations he made after winning the election.

In the letter, Mr Hazzard said the project was one of many promised but work would still start before the end of the current term of parliament.

“In the period prior to the March election, the NSW Government announced a significant number of upgrades to hospital and health facilities across the state,” he said.

“This requires a prioritisation of when projects will commence over the next four years and will occur in alignment with the annual budget process.

“Once funding is made available through the budget process, Health Infrastructure will work with the local health district and clinical staff to progress the project through the planning stages.”......

Saying "Thank you"......

The Clarence Valley Independent, 2 May 2018:

A letter from mum and dad

Ed,

We will never forget certain things from this journey ever in our lives. On March 22, 2018 our lives changed forever.

Watching our baby Emerald (7 months old) go into cardiac arrest and multi organ failure one hour after arriving at our local hospital, me just taking her because I thought she was sick, then it all went downhill from there. The NETs retrieval team was called in to take us to Westmead; Emerald suffered a seizure in Grafton from low blood sugar that resulted in a brain injury and fluid on her brain, needing life support. It took NETS another six hours to stabilise her to get on the plane. Emerald was blue and lifeless and no one thought she would make it; in that moment I thought my baby had died, then the next day eight hours after arrival at the children’s hospital, we had a diagnosis of a very rare CHD called ALCAPA that Emerald had been silently fighting for seven months and was never picked up. They took her for major open heart surgery at 8am on March 23; the longest day of my life. They told me to be prepared for the worst as they expected Emerald to come back on the ECMO (the double bypass machine for lungs and heart).

3pm came and Emmy was about to come out of surgery and she wasn’t on the machine! When the head surgeon sat me down and pretty much told me no one told him about her low blood sugar and Emerald suffered another seizure creating a complication for the surgery, yet she still didn’t come back on that machine, they kept telling me that she would end up on it to give her heart a rest; the next week was very touch and go, we almost lost our girl three more times but still no ECMO; Emerald was fighting so hard
And the doctors telling me that her liver and kidneys won’t make it; she was so puffed up with fluid and so yellow from the jaundice and that they thought she had more seizures, but couldn’t tell because she was on the muscle relaxant, the only thought in my head was if she was going to be ok. I didn’t care if her brain injury resulted in her being a little more special, I just wanted to know she was ok – they couldn’t guarantee us anything and they still can’t. Emerald also contacted two blood infections, pneumonia from being on the life support and a collapsed lung.

This experience has been very trying and testing and very traumatising and we feel so out of our comfort zone being here and almost 700km away from home.

A few anxiety attacks from mum and dad over the last 5 weeks
Some very touch and go moments I will never forget.
We are slowly on the road to recovery, Emerald has astounded all her doctors with how far she has come and that she ever once stopped fighting.

Emerald is a miracle five weeks post op and she is saying mum, hi, can do high 5; eating solids again and rolling over from side to side!

I could not be standing here today beside my heart warrior if it wasn’t for the support from my family and friends and the entire community who has rallied around my daughter to help us. Thank you for all the donations and the prayers; we are truly blessed to have such caring kind hearted people in our lives and our little gem is fighting to get back to our little community so we can say thank you to everyone that has helped us.
Thank you from the bottom of my heart.

I know this journey still has a long, long way to go and the shock has worn off finally and is only just hitting me now, but every day is a step closer to home and Emmy is improving every single day.
And I appreciate everything you all have done – Thank you.

Thank you for never leaving Emerald in the dark.

Jess and Kev – Emerald’s parents