7th September 2006 - Gold Coast Greens Candidate for Surfers Paradise, Dean Hepburn, called today for urgent action on the critical lack of hospital beds on the Gold Coast.

Mr Hepburn, who has worked in the health care industry for 15 years, said that Gold Coast residents could not wait for the Parkwood Hospital to be built and that urgent action needed to be taken to increase the capacity of the Gold Coast Hospital at Southport as a short term measure.

“With the strong growth in the population of the Gold Coast and no hospital planned for the high growth corridor from Coomera to Beenleigh there is an urgent need to increase the number of beds at our major regional hospital” he explained. “Even after the Parkwood Hospital is completed, the extra beds at Southport will still be needed” he added.

He also noted that the Federal Government were partly to blame as many hospital beds were clogged with people who should be in aged care facilities but who remained in hospital because there was a shortage of nursing home beds.

“State Labor and Federal Coalition Governments have both managed to stuff this up and it is time we had action instead of squabbling about cost shifting”.

For more information contact Dean Hepburn, Greens Candidate for Surfers Paradise 5564 0158 or 5588 9365.