It is exactly 3 years since the bipartisan pre-election announcement of $64 million for radiation oncology services in 13 regional areas that included Eurobodalla.
The protagonists have changed with the Federal Minister for Health, Mr Greg Hunt, retiring and the Hon Bridget McKenzie no longer the Minister for Regional Services.
Similarly, Bill Shorten is no longer the Leader of the Opposition and Catherine King is no longer the Shadow Minister for Health.
Of the seven NSW regions included in the proposal only the South Coast and Armidale will not have local radiation oncology services.
Congratulations to Grafton/Clarence Valley, the Tweed region, Nambucca/Kempsey, Manning/Great Lakes and Griffith on achieving radiation oncology services.
One might note that these are all faithful Liberal/National electorates.
Armidale residents missed out and will have to travel 80 minutes to Tamworth for their radiation oncology services.
Meanwhile residents of the Bega electorate must travel up to three and a half hours for radiotherapy.
Note that the electorate of Bega is the only Labor electorate in that list.
Will the Bega electorate receive another offer in this election?
More importantly, will the NSW Ministry for Health accept the Federal offer and provide these services to the people of the Bega electorate?
There was a successful relaunch of the ONE information table at the Moruya Markets today.
Adding to the considerable community interest were the volume of of questions, accompanied by many a strong comment.
To the organiser's genuine surprise there were quite a few demands to start a 3rd petition focusing mainly on provision of local Radiation Oncology services.
Today's ONE information table voluneers said "This was part of the November 2021 ePetition that was lodged but regrettably SNSWLHD continues to be adamantly disinterested. As recently as last week ONE made it very clear that we find this response unacceptable."
