Ken O'Dowd (Flynn, National Party) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

Health services in Gladstone are considered by many to be third world. Gladstone is the most populated town in my electorate of Flynn, and yet the state government has failed to address the lack of doctors in the regions and in particular Gladstone Hospital. The emergency department and the new outpatients department and proposed super clinic are good for the town but we still lack the doctors.

I have some questions I would like to ask the state government. How do you explain fewer surgical and medical beds now than in 2012? The population has grown in that period of time. How do you explain the departure of 11 specialists in recent times? Will they testify that the reason is the lack of ICU or the downgrading of the hospital from a level 4 to a level 3? It should be level 2, I think. We can't have you saying there are 50 doctors. If there are 50 doctors in the Gladstone Hospital, give us some names, please. We need those services now, not in 2022 or 2023. Who's Glenn Butcher, the state member, fighting for? A petition signed by 5,000 people called on an urgent hospital upgrade to a level 4, and it seems to have fallen on deaf ears. Thank you.