Julie Owens (Parramatta, Australian Labor Party, Shadow Parliamentary Secretary for Small Business) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

Last week a wonderful institution in my electorate, the Westmead Hospital, celebrated its 35th birthday. It was opened on 10 November 1978, four years after Gough Whitlam set aside money for the teaching hospital in 1974.

It is the largest medical campus in the southern hemisphere. It is a hospital whose reputation is so good locally that people who have moved into the suburb of Westmead in order to be close to it, particularly when they have young children. The birthing unit alone has delivered a total of 148,236 babies to date since 1979 to September 2013—almost the entire population of my electorate of Parramatta now. It operates one of the busiest emergency departments in the state, treating more than 60,000 patients in the past year. If you are unlucky enough to be in an accident, you are very lucky if you are close to Westmead Hospital.

When the hospital opened in 1979, there were only two wards. Now there are 40 wards with 19 operating theatres. It has the largest dental clinical school in the state. Again, Westmead Hospital is an extraordinary institution that I visit on a regular basis. In 2012-13 alone it had more than 92,000 admissions. Happy birthday to the Westmead Hospital. We are very lucky to have it in our electorate.