New Eurobodalla Regional Hospital

Submission from Eurobodalla Shire Council. Please see attached letter. General support provided but some concerns around construction workforce housing and location of the helipad.

The proposed EUROBODALLA REGIONAL HOSPITAL Transport and Traffic Impact Assessment (exhibit H), posted online by Health Infrastructure NSW, dated 22 May 2023, is incomplete.

It lacks ALL the data require to assess the true Environmental impact of the proposed Hospital.

For example, it lacks any data on total estimated Greenhouse gas (GHG) emissions caused by the proposed Hospital.

In fact, the whole report does not even include the words “greenhouse”, “GHG” or “CO2”.

The posted document has no actual results of research, or calculations, but is just a “check the box” document lightly adapted from countless previous consultant “reports”.

We as a community require the following data:

1. Total daily GHG emissions from ALL sources, especially the private automobile use by doctors, nurses, other staff, patients and visitors.
2. The total daily ADDITIONAL GHG emissions caused by locating the hospital NOT at the centre of population of Eurobodalla Shire (roughly, Broulee) but in a greenfield site on the outskirts of politically powerful Moruya township. This includes
a) additional ambulance kilometres driven each day, on average;
b) additional doctor, nurse and staff kilometres driven each day, on average; and
c) additional patient and visitor kilometres driven each day, on average.

The GHG load from these additional kilometres driven is essential permanent for the lifetime of the hospital, given the slow adoption of EVs in our Shire and the less than average income of families in our Shire.

The data in 2(a) is crucial for an additional reason. Numerous independent studies have shown that the survival rate for patients require ambulance transport to hospital is dependent on three factors: (i) quality and experience of ambulance paramedics; (ii) quality and experience of doctors, nurses and other staff at the receiving hospital; (iii) time before patient pick-up and number of kilometres travelled in the ambulance. We are blessed in Eurobodalla Shire with absolutely top quality ambulance and medical staff, so our ratings in items (i) and (ii) are superb. Hence, to assess the final impact of the proposed hospital, we need the data in (iii).

These calculations need to be performed with the actual centre of population of our Shire, Eurobodalla. This requires access to confidential census data, quite properly not available to the general public.

The report mentions existing bus route 860 (which currently goes nowhere near the proposed hospital), without reporting the crucial fact that it runs very infrequently, often 90 or 120 minutes between services, and often not at weekends, when many visitors would be coming to the hospital to see relatives and friends.

I request that the “Environmental Impact assessment” be rejected, and updated with the necessary data.

Level 3 Neonatal care & specialists needs to be included into this Level 4 Regional hospital project, deliveries previously were up at 300-350/ year at Moruya maternity unit statistically greater than other hospitals in the the SNSWLHD with deliveries still far greater than other units

The Eurobodalla currently has Oncology at Moruya hospital with this current unit treating high numbers of patients with cancer,having Radiotherapy treatment here also would benefit these cancer patients avoiding treatment out of the region & away from their support ties. The 2021 Sensis reports the Eurobodalla population at 40453 a significant population increase & growing rapidly with many relocating to rural communities, this certainly indicates the numbers are there, along with the annual 1.5 million visitors to the region
Another planning point I noticed was the positioning of the heli pad, placed on the eastern side close to the Keightley street, could this be further around a little more distance between the heli pad & the residents, I realise this has been positioned at this point because of proximity with ED & ICU etc however seems like there’s more land available away from that area that could be utilised

Thankyou
The Eurobodalla are excited with this Regional hospital build finally after too long, we need to ensure it’s a hospital to take us long into the future & not just a oversized building like the Federal govt built in Bega with SERH. The population in the Eurobodalla warrants this fully functional Level 4 Regional hospital sadly twisted into the daily politics of NSW

My wife and I support the new build of the hospital. The provision of health services including specialists on site need to be improved to enable equal access to health care locally in the shire.
As this is to absorb the hospital function from Batemans Bay the build of the bypass will be required to give that part of the population good access to the facilities.