CHILDREN'S HOSPICE — SWANBOURNE
618. Ms A. SANDERSON to the Premier:
I refer to the McGowan Labor government's investment
in health services and infrastructure that put patients first. Can the Premier
outline to the house how this government's investment in Western Australia's
first children's hospice will provide care and support for children
with life-limiting conditions; and can the Premier advise the house why
Swanbourne was chosen as the preferred site for the hospice?
Mr M. McGOWAN
replied:
I thank the member for Morley for
the question.
Last month, with the participation
of the Minister for Health, we were very pleased to announce that we would
partner with the Perth Children's Hospital Foundation to build Western Australia's
first ever children's hospice—a place that can support children
and their families through the hardest times they will ever face. The tragic
reality in Western Australia is that there are 2 000 children across our state
who are living with life-limiting medical conditions. They suffer from a variety
of illnesses: cancer, cardiac conditions, severe neurological problems and
severe life-limiting disabilities. This places enormous demands on them and
their families. You can only imagine the isolation and difficulty involved in
dealing with such situations.
Western
Australia does not have a hospice for children with palliative care needs. At
the moment, the choices of treatment and care are hospital or home; there is
nowhere in between. This is a shortcoming that we need to fix. New South
Wales has Bear Cottage and other states have various such facilities. I am very
pleased that the Perth Children's
Hospital Foundation, under the very able leadership of Ian Campbell, is
partnering with the Child and Adolescent Health Service to deliver a fantastic
new hospice for kids in Western Australia. Members who have seen pictures of
the designs will know that it will be absolutely wonderful. It is one of the
things that we will do in our term of government that I am most proud of, and I
would like to thank the Minister for Health for all his work on it.
The preferred site is the former
Swanbourne Bowling Club. A range of sites were looked at by the Perth Children's
Hospital Foundation, but only the Swanbourne Bowling Club site at Allen Park
met all the criteria. It is close to the
Perth Children's Hospital, it is vacant and near to the ocean, and it
is close to residential areas and local amenities for families. It has
great opportunities for garden and landscape access for kids, and there is a lack
of competing alternative uses. It has a wonderful
environment, beautiful ocean views, and children can be taken down to the
ocean.
This project should be absolutely
and completely uncontroversial. Every Western Australian should get behind it. It is something that we should all embrace and
say, ''Thank God we've got the Perth Children's Hospital
Foundation promoting this, getting donations, and working with
government to create something so wonderful for families and children.''
That is why I find the City of Nedlands and its gross display of nimbyism and
selfishness so extraordinarily difficult to
take. It makes my blood boil that it would act in the way that it has. It has
refused to engage with the project
control group. It claims it was engaged too late, even though it made Hon Ian
Campbell wait months to brief the
council. Councillors were making ridiculous claims about the Special Air
Service dropping bombs in the area. One line from the council in a letter
to me said that when it was offered a briefing, it was ''presented a solution
to a problem we did not know we had''. Terminally ill children are not a
problem. They are not something to be handballed away. They are our kids, whom
we need to embrace, and we need to help them and their families.
Several members interjected.
The SPEAKER: Members!
Mr M. McGOWAN: The City of
Nedlands should be falling over itself to assist the foundation and the state
government to deliver this facility. It should be grabbing it as one of the
great things it can do during its time in public office to enhance the state,
to enhance its own area, and to help families and children around the state.
The City of Nedlands should be ashamed of itself at this point in time. This is
a wonderful project. It is long overdue. The state government is absolutely
supportive of it, and we will pull out all stops to ensure that this project
happens. I urge that council to put its nimbyism behind it and get on board.