Super clinic collapse warning went unheeded
17th Oct 2011 Byron Kaye all articles by this author
HEALTH Minister Nicola Roxon’s office was warned 14 months ago that the Sorell GP super clinic would collapse without extra funding but promised to “make a priority of sorting this immediately post election”, MO can reveal.
But rather than give a $1.5 million lifeline as requested by its operators, the Department of Health and Ageing asked the clinic owner after the 2010 election to cut costs by substituting curtains for walls between doctors’ rooms, lowering the entire building, and relying on “natural ventilation” instead of toilet exhaust systems.
Edward Gauden, CEO of Sorell Integrated Healthcare (SIH), which was to operate the Sorrel super clinic, refused these requests but, encouraged by Ms Roxon’s office, was holding out for other commonwealth funding when he learned on the evening news this month that the minister had scrapped the project.
Emails between the offices of Ms Roxon and local Labor MP Dick Adams, the department and Mr Gauden, obtained by MO, confirm Mr Gauden’s claims that he had long warned the government that the super clinic – which had support among local doctors – could not be built for the allotted $2.5 million, and that he was repeatedly assured the government would step in to save it.
On 12 August 2010, with the federal election less than two weeks away, Mr Adams’s electorate officer Dee Alty wrote to the minister warning that if a funding solution could not be found that same day, SIH would be “announcing publicly tomorrow that they will not be going ahead as they do not have the funding… It is just insufficient”.
The email also questioned “why the Sorell super clinic is not being seen as a proper super clinic which should like the others attract the $5 million”.
Ms Roxon’s chief of staff Angela Pratt responded that the government was in caretaker mode and could not commit new money, but advised that Mr Adams “should say [to Mr Gauden] that he has spoken to the minister’s office and been given an assurance that we will look at the issue post election if Labor is returned, to get the clinic back on track”.
Ms Alty pressed further, writing the next day that Mr Gauden needed assurance the building would be finished by the end of 2010. Ms Pratt replied: “We will make a priority of sorting this immediately post election… Obviously we don’t want it to fall over either!”
Ms Roxon announced on 7 October 2011 the clinic would not go ahead. Three days later the government committed another $3.2 million to the troubled Redcliffe super clinic in Queensland, on top of an existing $10 million outlay. A spokesperson for Ms Roxon said the department met with SIH “on numerous occasions to assist them in reworking their proposal but unfortunately we have recently been made aware that they will not proceed on this original basis”.
Mr Adams said his office had pressed for more funds, but Mr Gauden should have been able to build the clinic for $2.5 million.
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