Jill Hall (Shortland, Australian Labor Party) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

An issue that is of great importance to the people on the Central Coast is the fact that no MRI has been licensed there within the public system. I would like to congratulate the New South Wales member for Peats, Marie Andrews, on the fine campaign that she has been running to get the MRI that is situated in Gosford hospital licensed. It has been a long struggle by the people of the Central Coast and in the New South Wales Department of Health to try to get this machine licensed. An application first went in in May 2004 prior to the machine being installed in Gosford hospital, and there have been a number of subsequent letters sent off to the department. Morris Iemma, the then New South Wales Minister for Health, strongly supported the application. The Director-General of the Department of Health also wrote in support of the application and made a very strong case for why the MRI should be licensed.

The Central Coast was one of the three areas in New South Wales identified as an area of need. It has a rapidly growing and elderly population. Robertson, the federal electorate where Gosford Hospital is situated, is the fifth oldest electorate in the country. Dobell is the 29th oldest electorate in the country and Shortland, which is the other part of the Central Coast, is the 10th oldest electorate in Australia. The MRI machine currently operates in Gosford Hospital and it is underutilised because it can only be used for inpatient services, whilst there is demand for a public funded MRI to service the emergency department and people who cannot afford to access the private system. It is very much needed as a publicly accessible MRI on the Central Coast. There is one privately operated MRI machine. In that same period this government has granted two licences for MRI machines to operate in private practice on the North Shore.

The member for Robertson obviously blames the state government and said that the machine was put in before licences were applied for. That is not so. I have proof of that here in these letters. Mr Deputy Speaker, I would like to table these letters and I seek leave to do so. I also seek leave to table a petition with signatures from 1,930 people on the Central Coast who are imploring this government to grant a licence for the MRI machine in Gosford Hospital. (Time expired)

Leave granted.