The Narrabri community has strongly resolved to fight any moves to downgrade Narrabri pathology services.
A public meeting at Narrabri RSL on Tuesday night voted unanimously to challenge any changes which diminish the current level of services.
The meeting drew a capacity audience of hundreds of concerned and angry residents, passionate about protecting local medical services.
RSL staff had installed 240 chairs in the main auditorium, all of which filled early, there were 100 chairs filled in the adjoining room and many more standing people watched and listened from the sides.
The meeting was convened by Narrabri shire mayor Darrell Tiemens in response to an announcement from Hunter New England Health that changes were proposed to pathology services at Narrabri from July 1.
After a meeting with Member for Barwon Roy Butler on Monday, the NSW Minister for Health Ryan Park affirmed that ‘no decision has been made’ on future pathology services.
But there is community outrage that the moves towards pathology changes had long been underway with no transparency or notification to affected people.
Tuesday’s meeting was advised by NSW Pathology spokesman Professor Rob Lindeman that no final decision had been made. There were very complex issues across technology and operation of the services to be worked through, he said.
“We are just at the beginning of a consultation process. We are listening carefully with the aim to provide timely testing appropriate to community needs.”
However, at the conclusion of the meeting a motion from the floor from Mr Lachie Melbourne that “Narrabri community has no confidence whatsoever in the consultation process” was unanimously adopted.
Demand for fully independent inquiry
Tuesday night’s meeting protesting proposed cuts to Narrabri pathology services unanimously endorsed a motion from mayor Darrell Tiemens tor calling for an inquiry into the proposed changes.
“We call on the Minister for Health, Ryan Park, to initiate a fully independent inquiry into the proposal to close the pathology laboratory at Narrabri Hospital,”the motion demanded.
A second motion called for ‘Hunter New England Health to upgrade services that have bypassed Narrabri Hospital including stroke diagnostics, on-site mental health services, improved oncology services, onsite dialysis machines and equivalent technologies.
The meeting also resolved that ‘Hunter New England Health restore both Boggabri and Wee Waa hospitals to the same service level they provided five years ago.’
A fourth motion called on the Minister ‘to initiate a review into Hunter New England Health’s support for rural and remote hospitals.’
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