Government lets wards run down to justify new hospital

Run-down cancer wards at the Royal Adelaide Hospital are being used by the government to justify building a new railway hospital.

Save the RAH Group chairman Jim Katsaros says that the Cancer Wards on C6 and D6 were in a disgraceful state.

“That has been a raw deal for cancer patients and represented poor planning and poor use of public money,” says Dr Katsaros. “South Australian cancer patients deserve better than this.”

He says there is plenty of space at the RAH to improve conditions for patients, not make them wait for another 10 years.

Currently the RAH has 650 inpatient beds. In 1989 there were 1150 inpatient beds but successive governments (both Liberal and Labor) have closed wards and reduced the number of beds.

Dr Katsaros points out that there are currently more than 10 wards not in clinical use.

Some are being used for storage, some have been leased to private research bodies and two have been refurbished to be used as administrative offices.

He says the Government is spending $15 million to transfer the renal transplant unit from the QEH but it will abandon this area and shift everything to a new railway hospital.

“With this sort of wastage and a projected cost of almost $2b for the new railway hospital, we could be heading for another State Bank scenario.”

Dr Katsaros says all South Australians, including RAH employees, should see for themselves the many refurbished parts of the Hospital.