VIC: Doubts on whether new hospital to go ahead, oppn

AAP General News (Australia)
04-21-1999
VIC: Doubts on whether new hospital to go ahead, oppn

MELBOURNE, April 21 AAP - The Victorian opposition today raised doubts over construction
plans for a privatised Melbourne hospital, claiming the project had been put on the
backburner.

Opposition Health spokesman John Thwaites said treasury officials were insisting the funds
to treat patients at the Knox hospital come from existing public hospitals.

"Behind closed doors, treasury officials are refusing to allow this project to go ahead
because there is no funding to pay for the treatment of patients at Knox," he said.

Other public hospitals within the Inner and Eastern Healthcare Network - the Angliss and
Maroondah hospitals - would be closed and the Alfred Hospital have its services drastically
reduced, he said.

"In the leadup to the state election it is too politically embarrassing for the government
to admit that these hospitals could be closed if Knox goes ahead," he said.

"Accordingly the government has put the whole project on the backburner."

Treasurer Alan Stockdale did not directly answer a question from Mr Thwaites in parliament
about whether there would be enough government money to treat patients at Knox without using
funds from other hospitals.

Community Services Minister Denis Napthine last night told parliament the hospital would be
completed by 2000 but today clarified the position after a question from Mr Thwaites.

"What I sought to convey to the house was that the planning stages will be completed by the
year 2000 and that this hospital will be built subsequent to that," he told parliament.

Mr Thwaites later said the expressions of interest documents for Knox were originally meant
to go out in March 1998 but the whole tender process had been put on hold.

The hospital would have an annual budget of more than $100 million a year.

AAP lmw/jlw/cjh

KEYWORD: KNOX

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