The word is out

Today we had the honour of speaking out in public along with the Shadow Minister for Health, the Hon Roger Cook, in support of the 9 play co-ordinators at PMH who's jobs have been made 'redundant'. In response, Minister Day has stated tha the model to be introduced is the same as that used in the Royal Childrens Hospital (Melbourne). If that is, in fact, the case, then we are very happy to have our play co-coordinators reinstated as play therapists! Unfortunately, I feel the Minister was mistaken in fact or reference, as the hospital he was actually wishing to refer to is Lady Cilento Childrens Hospital in Brisbane. The difference, however, is that there is a well established Childrens Hospital Foundation that supports the recruitment, retainment, training and professional development of volunteers in this field. Minister Day proposes that we can implement something similar in less than 30 days! Clearly that cannot occur, and in the meantime it will be OUR CHILDREN that suffer!!! The decision at the very least needs to be deferred until the Minister can show he has sufficient trained and qualified volunteers in place to replace the full 7.5FTE he is cutting from hospital services! Anything less than that will result in the reduction of support services to our children, and this is just not acceptable.