Thursday, 7 March 2024
Subjects: Cowra Hospital redevelopment.
E&OE…
Janeen Hosemans: Well, the member for Cootamundra, Steph Cooke, has welcomed the completion of the first concrete poor for the $110.2 million-dollar Cowra Hospital redevelopment.
It's another major and important milestone in the long -awaited project.
She joins us now, Steph Cooke, good afternoon to you.
Steph Cooke: Oh, good afternoon, Janeen, it's lovely to join you and your listeners this afternoon.
Janeen Hosemans: Very nice to have you on air, Steph, I know it's a very busy day in Parliament with everybody just back, I can only imagine to be like a school on a windy day.
I'd imagine everybody would be very, very excited. I was looking this morning at just how far your electorate goes and it's quite extraordinary and you were telling me it's not uncommon for you to do a couple of thousand kilometres in the car each week.
Steph Cooke: Yeah, that's correct, Janeen, we call it the seat of small communities.
There's over 170 small towns, villages and localities in the electorate of Cootamundra.
It's almost the size of Switzerland, a smidgen under that size, and it's got varying landscapes from east to west and north to south and it's a very, very large electorate, and I'm a very passionate local member.
I love my communities and I therefore spend a lot of time on the road hopping from one to the next to hear from locals to really understand what's happening on the ground to support their grants and their funding applications to see what work still needs to be done and of course to celebrate when there's amazing stuff happening in our communities and there's always plenty in that space because we have communities that are so strong in the volunteering space, they really step up and it's a great electorate to represent.
Janeen Hosemans: What a breath of fresh air you are, Steph.
Well, the Cowra Hospital Development, I know that the community down there is just absolutely beside themselves.
They just feel so privileged to be having this development starting and, of course, we had the concrete pour late last week early this week?
Steph Cooke: That's correct, those earthworks and that construction work is really, really ramping up now and we're starting to see this hospital come to life, it's been a long time coming.
It was first raised with me as an issue in 2017 when I first put my hand up to run for the New South Wales State Parliament to represent the people of the Cootamundra electorate and looking at the existing Cowra District Hospital at that time and of course many times since it was apparent to me from the outset that this was much needed.
We really did need a brand new redeveloped hospital for Cowra and it's had its fair share of trials and tribulations along the way but we are now firmly in that build phase, and we look forward to the hospital coming up out of the ground over the next few months, and hopefully sometime in 2025 we will be able to see the new hospital take its first patients.
Janeen Hosemans: Steph, what can the community expect in terms of services as part of their brand -new hospital?
Steph Cooke: There is just so much to celebrate in this respect.
We're going to see a brand-new emergency department and anyone who's listening to your program this afternoon, Janeen, will know that the constraints on the existing emergency department in the current Cowra hospital are really troubling.
It's very difficult for the staff to manage in that environment, they do a magnificent job and as we know, if you're in emergency, then you've got some significant health challenges, and our staff there always rise to the occasion and the challenges that are presented to them.
But there's no doubt that a brand-new emergency department was needed that has more bays that can house more upgraded and state -of -the -art medical equipment to handle anything that comes through the door because we know that a hospital like Cowra doesn't just service the immediate township of Cowra.
It extends right out even to other towns such as Canowindra and Grenfell and so we need to make sure that whether you're coming from just around the block in Cowra or whether you're coming in from Woodstock or Wyangala or Darby's Falls or out the other side, that you will be able to receive the best care in a really, really timely fashion and the new emergency department will certainly deliver against that.
There's a lot more to it Janeen than just an emergency department, of course, but I always get stuck passionately on that point because the staff are doing such an amazing job there at present and have done for many years and I can't wait for them to be able to put their skills and experience to use in a brand-new facility.
Janeen Hosemans: Well, of course you can have your bub there, there's a dental clinic, renal dialysis, oncology and community health and mental health so important in regional and rural communities.
Steph, we might leave it there. I want to thank you very much for joining us. We'll let you get back to the business of Parliament and I hope that we chat again very soon.
Steph Cooke: I would love that. Thank you, Janeen.
Janeen Hosemans: Thanks for your time.
Steph Cook there, the MP, member for Cootamundra. And I say enormous, check her out online. There is just an enormous area that Steph has to get around and around about 2 ,000 kilometres per week.
That's the kind of MP you want.