By JESSE GRAHAM
THE FIGHT isn’t over.
Last Thursday, community members gathered in Healesville for a community rally to celebrate the progress in the campaign to save Healesville Hospital and to keep pushing for maternity to return.
The rally followed a recent announcement of $7.8 million for an expansion of the hospital’s services, which includes surgery and renal dialysis units.
However, maternity services have yet to return to the hospital, after closing around this time last year.
Woori Yallock’s Sarah Habenschuss, whose child, Diezel, was the final baby born in Healesville before maternity services were removed, attended the event and said she would like to see the service return.
“The services were excellent – really caring and friendly. I didn’t feel like just another number,” she said.
“I want to have my next baby with them, so they need to reopen in the next few years!”
Save Healesville Hospital Action Group (SHHAG) organised the rally and SHHAG Chair Fiona McAllister spoke there, congratulating the community efforts in campaigning over the last year.
“It’s been an amazing year for our community, and it all began with an unfortunate event, to say the least, with the closing of our maternity services,” she said.
“The community rallied over this last year … to revive, maintain and expand our services.
“And, one year later, we stand here with a commitment for $7.8 million to bring back our surgery and give the renal dialysis we’ve always been promised.”
Healesville Rotary ran a sausage sizzle at the event, balloons were handed out for a mass-release at 12.30pm and 597 photographs of children born at the local hospitals were on display.
Around 300 balloons were released on the day for the event.
Photos of babies born at the Healesville Hospital, Yarra Junction Bush Nursery and Lilydale Private Hospital from 1979 to 1990 were shown in the window of Healesville’s Community Bank.
All the hospitals that the photos came from have since ceased maternity services, with the closest birthing services being available at Ferntree Gully’s Angliss Hospital or Box Hill Hospital.
Ms McAllister said that, in a local community such as the Yarra Ranges, there were few things as important as babies and commented on the hospital’s past.
“Mothers weren’t isolated down the line, but rather were close to their loved ones and safe in the community they knew,” she said.
“I refuse to accept this is a thing of the past.
“Today, we celebrate our achievements … we celebrate our ongoing commitment as a community and as a group to getting the services we deserve and need.”
In one of his first local appearances since winning the September election for Casey, MP Tony Smith spoke at the event, congratulating the community passion behind the campaign.
“As a federal member of parliament, we do not own or operate Eastern Health, but that does not diminish or dilute my commitment to see the Healesville Hospital and the health services in the area be the best they can be,” he said.
Mr Smith said that the $50,000 pre-election pledge to help fund an independent business study to assess the possibility of Healesville Hospital running independently would be available if it was needed.
He said that SHHAG would need to partner and contribute the rest of the funding for the business case study.
Ms McAllister said that SHHAG would be meeting with Health Minister David Davis on 18 October to discuss the details of the $7.8 million funding for Healesville Hospital.
