LEETON District Hospital staff have called on the state government to avoid privatising hospital services.
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Staff held a protest outside the hospital grounds last week as part of state-wide action by the Health Services Union (HSU).
Privatisation has emerged as a key issue in the lead up to the state election.
“The proposed privatisation of hospitals has unfortunately been going under the radar because it’s been all about the sale of the poles and wires,” Leeton HSU site representative Michael Kidd said.
“We’re concerned what privatisation will mean if it goes ahead.
“It’s already happening in hospital warehouses, payroll and human resources.
“All of these changes can have a big impact on how services are delivered.
“It’s a scary prospect if hospitals were to become privatised. There’s no doubt there’s services that will suffer.
“In some cases it could be that some won’t be able to afford different health care options.
“In the case of radiology, if that was outsourced it could definitely be expensive if someone private is running it.
“It’s definitely concerning.”
Planning is already underway by the government to further outsource jobs and functions within the hospital system.
Mr Kidd was unsure if voting out the current coalition would have an impact on decision-making relating to the privatisation.
“I’m definitely aware that the Nationals are quite concerned about this, as is Labor,” Mr Kidd said.
“If the Nationals were able to get more seats in the election hopefully they would have a bit more sway with this.”
However, the fears surrounding hospital privatisation have been rubbished by Member for Murrumbidgee Adrian Piccoli.
“No one's privatising hospitals, this is a union scare campaign that they use every election,” he said.
“No one's privatising anything, the fact that we use private contractors to build hospitals has been happening for the last 30-40 years.
“It's just a scare campaign run by unions when they've got nothing else to say, so no, it makes no impact.”