Hospital Master Plan Falls Short

Published on 13 April 2022

The prospect of a new hospital is without doubt exciting news for the Cowra community, but Mayor of Cowra, Cr Bill West has expressed serious concern over the shortcomings in the Cowra Hospital Master Plan unveiled on 30th March by NSW Health and currently open to the public for comment.

“The Master Plan for Cowra’s new hospital falls well short of what was included in the Cowra Clinical Services Plan and what residents of the Cowra Shire and beyond need and deserve,” said Cr West.

“It has become obvious that budgetary constraints are the factor. The proposed reduction of a treatment bay in the Emergency Department, the reduction of a birthing suite and the reduction in treatment chairs in the Hospital Master Plan are just some of the points causing concern amongst our local doctors, nurses, allied health staff and residents.

Councillors are strongly of the opinion that our community is entitled to basic health care provisions, and this is not what we are seeing. Council will be advocating strongly to the NSW Government to ensure funding matches the needs of the community and the issues identified in the Clinical Services Plan,” said Cr West. 

The $70.2M Cowra Hospital Re-development was announced by the NSW Health Minister in February 2019. Western NSW Local Health District undertook comprehensive clinical services planning in 2020 to determine the future health services required for the Cowra Local Government Area. The Cowra Clinical Services Plan was submitted for review in 2020 and was endorsed by the NSW Ministry of Health in 2021.

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