Wyndham council is calling for the state government to secure land for a hospital in the municipality’s north to avoid a healthcare “catastrophe”.
During council’s March 22 meeting, councillors agreed to write to the Victorian Health Building Authority to express interest in obtaining land for a hospital in Wyndham’s north.
Council suggested a potential partnership with the state government, proposing that a hospital be built on council land.
In a written notice of motion, councillor Josh Gilligan said the city’s planning system was “in crisis” and that council had recently told Infrastructure Victoria that land for a new hospital must be identified within the next five years to avoid a health infrastructure catastrophe.
“Wyndham … has just one emergency department for nearly 300,000 people and a second part-time private hospital that does not run 24 hours a day,“ Cr Gilligan said,
“There is no land reserved for a hospital (public or private) in Wyndham north and we’re 282 public beds short of what we already need to service our population.”
The motion was seconded by Cr Adele Hegedich who said there were not enough health facilities for the community.
“We need to address the inadequacies we have in this growing municipality when it comes to hospitals,” she said.
“In the southern part of Wyndham, we have the Werribee Mercy, St Vincent’s Private, Wyndham Clinic private hospital, and we’ll soon have a Point Cook community hospital. There is nothing in the northern part.”
Cr Jennie Barrera said the pandemic highlighted the different impacts COVID-19 had on different local government areas.
“As a municipality Wyndham was disproportionately impacted by the highest case numbers,“ she said.
“As a society we’re more acutely aware of the importance of community health and health infrastructure than we’ve ever been.“
A Victorian Government spokesperson said record levels of funding were being invested into the health system in Melbourne’s west, including the construction of a new community hospital in Point Cook and the extension of Werribee Mercy Hospital’s existing emergency department.
“We’ve invested more than $120 million for an expansion of critical care at Werribee Mercy Hospital, which delivered new inpatient beds, new critical care beds and new operating theatres, and the expansion of Mercy’s mental health facility – including 54 new mental health beds,“ a spokesperson said.
