Hospitals are stress-filled places at the best of times.
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They’re also, traditionally, places where parking and access add to those stress levels, and particularly at major hospitals like Newcastle’s John Hunter Hospital.
In NSW Parliament on Tuesday Wallsend MP Sonia Hornery made the case why stress levels at John Hunter Hospital, for staff and patients, are being exacerbated by roads, and NSW Government plans won’t address the problem.
Ms Hornery told Parliament that staff and patients are stuck in the gridlock around, and in, the hospital for up to an hour during peak periods, and a proposal for a half interchange must be upgraded to the full interchange Hunter New England Health has supported.
In 2016 the Newcastle Herald put the case for the Australian Paramedics Association, which said the Newcastle Inner City Bypass, while “obviously needed and long overdue”, left significant issues unresolved.
The association expressed concern that the half interchange put forward by the Roads and Maritime Services, was “not anticipated to relieve a number of locations where traffic congestion frequently delays paramedics”.
The half interchange improved access for inbound ambulances approaching from the north, but there were significant problems to the south if intersections on Lookout Road were blocked, the association said.
Traffic modelling relied on by the RMS to defer a full interchange was challenged in 2016 by critics who say the modelling figures do not reflect the reality of traffic movements in areas around the hospital.
Critics this week say the evidence needed to support a full interchange is there for all to see right now – between 3.30pm and 6pm, particularly on Tuesdays, Wednesdays and Thursdays, staff can wait between 20 minutes and an hour to leave the hospital site.
When a 740-space car park was built on the hospital site it was applauded as an essential element in providing a modern, accessible major hospital to service the Hunter region. But what is now clear is that withdrawing the park and ride shuttle bus was premature, and should be revisited, as Parliament heard.
Any final decision on the interchange must be based on the best outcome for all hospital users, and the best use of hundreds of millions of dollars of public funds.
Issue: 38,468.
