Ross Earl, general manager, Bourke Shire Council writes:
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Bourke Shire Council has renewed calls for the re-establishment of the birthing unit at the Bourke Hospital.
Council at its meeting on October 25 resolved to write to the Health Minister, Jillian Skinner, calling for the immediate re-establishment of the unit with copies of the letter to be sent to the MP for Barwon, Kevin Humphries, and the Chief Executive of Western Area Health, Scott McLaughlin.
Council has previously lobbied to have the unit re-established but to no avail and it will again intensify its efforts in this regard.
Council will be also writing to the NSW Department of Health expressing concern at the lack of incentives available for attracting and retaining nurses and allied health professionals to Bourke and Western NSW.
Other agencies have utilised incentives with great success.
Despite ongoing issues in ensuing adequate numbers of trained nursing and allied health professionals are available in this part of the state there has been little provided in the way of incentives like provision of subsidised housing or ongoing professional development opportunities.
An investment in these incentives would in all probability be offset by a reduction of costs involved in the employment of agency nurses, the ongoing cost associated with recruitment and inductions.
Council Facebook. In an effort to increase communication and contact with all sectors of the community, council has launched its own Facebook page. The page will complement the information currently available on its website and will include such things as road condition reports, council’s events, notification of planned water outages and seek feedback on planned activities. Visit https://www.facebook.com/bourkeshireCouncil
CCTV. Council has received its first progress payment from the Commonwealth Attorney-General’s department under the 2015-2016 Safer Streets Programme for the upgrade of the CCTV cameras in and around the Bourke township.
The project includes installing seven new cameras and upgrading another eight, most of which use out-dated technology. Work has already started on installing poles to house the new cameras.