Henry Pike (Bowman, Liberal National Party) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

Today's CourierMail revealed that a constituent of mine spent 11 hours waiting to be seen at the Redland Hospital emergency department. Redland Hospital staff and patients are continuing to be let down by Labor government neglect and broken promises. Redland Hospital is the only metropolitan state hospital in Queensland without an intensive care unit, 24/7 general surgical services or inpatient orthopaedic services.

Ambulance ramping, the key indicator of hospital efficiency, continues at alarming levels. At Redland, it has reached 73 per cent—the worst level ever recorded in Queensland.

To fix this mess, the former coalition government provided $30 million to deliver a new ICU and 32 more beds by late 2022. Mismanagement from the state Labor government has resulted in this project being delayed by three years.

The coalition also invested $16 million to upgrade car parking, but the state Labor government's unnecessary imposition of parking fees has led to an unfair cost burden on patients and staff and created local traffic chaos. Despite the promise to hypothecate the revenue from the car park to hospital improvements, the state Labor government is refusing to release how much has been raised through the imposition of paid parking at Redland Hospital.

The state Labor government also promised to complete a $6 million business case for the next stage of the hospital expansion by the start of 2022. This promise has been broken, with planning now not to be considered until 2028 to 2032. We saw in the most recent state budget a tricky word game, where they're trying to pretend that another element of investment is the promised stage 2 upgrade, but Redlanders are too smart. They see straight through the what the Labor government is attempting to do with its spin. Sadly, the Miles Labor government is all announcement but no delivery. It is simply not good enough for a growing city like the Redlands to have such an inadequate hospital. This terrible neglect is jeopardising patient outcomes and putting strains on our dedicated hospital staff.

I want to thank the LNP candidates in the Redlands, Amanda Stoker, Rebecca Young and Susanna Damianopoulos, for their tireless advocacy to get the Redlands the hospital that we deserve. I hope that in 130-odd days time, when Redlanders have an opportunity to enter the polling booth and cast their vote, they remember the failures that have been created within our hospital and vote for a change of government.