WE’D struggle to think of a time when there was a schoolmate, or a mate at the footy club that didn’t have their arm in a sling at some stage in their childhood.
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Broken bones are a fact of life for many children as they test the limits of what they’re capable of.
It doesn’t always happen when tree-climbing, it might be jumping the BMX, or a hard landing at the footy field or going for a motorbike ride with the cousins.
As well as children suffering a fractured bone, they’ll also be able to experience the agonising journey all the way to Wagga Wagga or Canberra to get the bone set.
We’re almost at the end of the second decade of the 21st century, and our inability to do something as easy as set a broken bone seems odd.
And while Wagga’s new hospital may have briefly been known as the Rural Referral Hospital, we doubt anyone outside of that city was expecting the name to be so literal.
On the front page of Friday’s The Area News, Murrumbidgee Local Health District’s acting CEO Maurice Ahern said “orthopaedic services have been unavailable in Griffith for a number of years”.
That it is not one year, two or three years, it’s a “number of years” should tell you everything you need to know about their attitude to our expectation of health services in Griffith.
While a deal with St Vincent’s private hospital will mean some broken bones can be treated on a case-by-case basis, it’s outrageous that this deal hasn’t already been inked.
And meanwhile, in the background, we have a state election coming.
Having no orthopaedic services in Griffith is an absolute gift for prospective candidates – something that maybe the Nationals should have sorted long before now.
In June this year, Deputy Premier John Barilaro made a commitment to this city to build a new hospital.
“If we haven't delivered this hospital by March the voters will judge me as leader of the Nationals and as Deputy Premier, the local member - no one will need to resign, you will be throwing us out and deservingly so,” Mr Barilaro was quoted as saying in The Area News.
Well, perhaps Mr Barilaro, Member for Murray Austin Evans and the government can explain to us, why there aren’t any orthopaedic services at Griffith Base Hospital?
And see that they’re delivered.
