Smarter Hospitals for Queensland Kids

Proposed Closure of the Royal Childrens Hospital

An annöuncement was made by the then Premier before the last State Election that a new single site Qld. Childrens Hospital was to be built on the site of the Mater Childrens Hospital and that the Royal Childrens Hospital would be closed at that time. This proposed hospital was to be State of the Art and World Class.

Subsequently the plans have been budget driven and the plans have not lived up to most peoples expectation.. The new Hospital is turning out to be extremely costly 1.1 billion but it had originally been planned to cost 1.6 billion.

The new plans for the proposed single Hospital reveal significant decreases in Childrens services than the current 2 paediatric Hospitals deliver. In particular there will be less total neonatal cots no liver transplant services, no dedicated burns and no Infectious Diseases no PET scannerand limited Nuclear Medicine imaging to name a few.

A petition from 1500 petitioners from the RCH including Doctors, Nurses and Allied Health Professionals has been sent to the Premier asking for a review of the decision to close the RCH. The Medical Staff Association of the Royal Brisbane and Womens Hospital opposes the closure of the Royal Childrens Hospital for the following reasons.

There will be less total childrens hospital services than currently exist in the two childrens hospitals
There will be less access to acute hospital services for Brisbane North residents because of traffic congestion.

Ther will be loss of inpatient surgical services for our newborns who will have to be transferred across to the new hospital for surgery. This will have significant impact on the level ofcare currently provided at the Womens Hospital.

There will be a loss of the current advantages of the Herston site which include collocated world class research facilities,collocated genetic services and collocated Qld Medical School to name a few.

Please add your voice to the call for the Government to keep the Royal Childrens Hospital open so the people can have 2 centres of excellence for the children of Qld. The Mater Childrens and the Royal Childrens' Hospitals.