By Polly MacDonald
WOLLONGONG — Two hundred residents showed their disapproval of changes to services at Port Kembla Hospital by walking out of a community consultation meeting held at Warrawong Community Centre on September 3.
The Illawarra Area Health Service (IAHS) board called the meeting after protests against the transfer of acute services from Port Kembla to the Wollongong Hospital culminated in a large rally and a picket line by the South Coast Labour Council.
IAHS executives were interrupted by angry interjections as they tried to justify closure of Port Kembla's medical, surgical and orthopaedic wards, operating theatres, the high dependency unit and the medical imaging (X-ray) department, and the downgrading and privatisation of the casualty department.
Hotel services, the mortuary and the medical records department will also be transferred to Wollongong Hospital.
The changes are part of a plan to transform Port Kembla Hospital into the major rehabilitation, geriatric and psycho-geriatric centre for the Illawarra, while concentrating all other services at Wollongong.
The IAHS board's aim is to have Wollongong Hospital accredited to train medical students and attract substantial increases in funding.
After years of local community hospitals such as Kiama, Bulli and Coledale being downgraded and closed in the name of concentration of services, residents are sceptical about the real motives.
Port Kembla Hospital serves the residents of Warrawong and other suburbs surrounding the steelworks and port, where industrial accidents are a constant threat. Studies that reveal a leukaemia cluster in the region have heightened community awareness of health issues.
In the past 10 years there have been campaigns to reopen the children's ward and save the obstetrics unit at Shellharbour Hospital, to save the Coledale and Kiama hospitals, against nursing staff shortages at Wollongong Hospital and to support the RMOs' strike earlier this year.
When Port Kembla Hospital's casualty department was earlier threatened with closure, demonstrations, huge public meetings and picket lines forced successive governments to maintain the service.
Prior to the 1995 state election, promises by the ALP and a visit by Andrew Refshauge to the Coledale Hospital picket helped Labor retain four local electorates.
Paul Matters, SCLC secretary, reminded residents at the September 3 meeting that Labor had failed to honour those promises. "Refshauge said Coledale will be reopened, Kiama will be reopened, Shellharbour will not close and Port Kembla will not close."
Mark Armstrong from the Maritime Union, citing a recent ship fire off Port Kembla, vowed that the union movement would not allow Port Kembla Casualty to be closed.
Other residents were concerned that closures at Port Kembla would precede the refurbishment of Wollongong Hospital. "What will be available in the meantime?", one asked.
Thunderous applause greeted Matters' declaration that "Port Kembla hospital belongs to the community, not these bureaucrats." Residents then walked out, led by Armstrong.