Constituents have been short-changed

I am following up on my paid announcement on page 9 of Peninsula News (December 9) where I exposed the plight of the Lemon family on behalf of Mr and Mrs Lemon whose son James was surprisingly refused admittance to our brand new 30 bed rehabilitation wing at Woy Woy Public Hospital.

I set aside my work to attend an alliance meeting and then made some urgent phone calls to several politicians who were only too keen to be in the media and accept ownership of the return of our stolen community medical amenity in the run up to both State and Federal elections.

I was attempting to find out why there is an age restriction (over 60) to be admitted.

Being told by employees of our elected representatives, there are protocols in place is nowhere near an honest answer ministers.

The Woy Woy Public Hospital Alliance, with the help of several thousand community members, fought for and won the return of an important medical amenity.

The facility was in place to serve our community's children, parents and grandparents who, from time to time, need the care such amenity was providing to Woy Woy Peninsula locals, and importantly, the easy access and support from family friends and life partners.

Do not dare waste my people's time by referring their request for your answers, ministers, back to NSW Health.

We did not vote for NSW Health management, this is your own very political issue.

Those NSW Health people are on the record as having a credibility problem, being involved as they were in proactively supporting the politically motivated removal of our rehab, causing the unconscionable loss of valuable jobs.

So many local nurses and medical practitioners, many of whom had moved into the area to be close to work, were cut down by job losses which forced many to move elsewhere.

My readers should make it clear to our politicians Lucy Wicks, Deborah O'Neill, Chris Holstein, Jillian Skinner and our new member for the Central Coast, another local, by forwarding the published newspaper information with an accompanying letter.

We the peoples expect what we fought for to be in place at Woy Woy.

What is obvious to me is, as constituents, we have been short changed.

Please don't wait for the issue of restricting an important rehabilitation service to only people considered geriatrics to find its way to the streets.

James Lemon's best recovery needed the access he has been denied since August.

This could have been sorted with a phone call from Health Minister Jillian Skinner way back in September.

The Woy Woy Public Hospital Alliance and their supporters were not expecting to be ambushed by such an offensive political sin against the peoples.

Email, 18 Dec 2013

Edward James, Umina