Page 54 - Tropic Magazine Issue 11

Industry
Infrastructure

ROADS
POPULATION DENSITY
Persons per hectare Perhaps the most striking and tangible stress
points of our city’s growing pains can be seen from
behind the wheel of your car. Anyone driving in
Cairns Hospital school zones during drop off and pick up time or
0.96 travelling during peak hour on their way to work or
CAIRNS home will tell you our key local arterial roads are
HOSPITALS becoming more congested. While it’s obviously not
At different times over countless years, Cairns at capital city levels, you don’t expect to endure
Hospital has been under so much pressure it’s been traffic jams in Cairns.
forced to transfer patients to rural hospitals to cope 8.93
with surging demand. Ambulance ramping BRISBANE What should be done
became so bad earlier this year there were 29 • Upgrade the Western Arterial Road
ambulances idling outside the emergency • Invest in public transport
department waiting to unload patients on a • Build higher density developments at
Monday in March. All this despite the completion Smithfield, Edmonton and the CBD to cut
of a $450 million redevelopment. Government down on commute times
funding, clearly, can’t keep up with demand. 83.9
Remarkably, a 2011 media release from the then SYDNEY
Labor Government contained talk of a second
health facility at Edmonton to help “meet the future
health care needs of the Cairns region”. In that 2011
statement, Mulgrave MP Curtis Pitt said: “The
proposed facility will provide a day surgery unit, a
minor injuries clinic, two operating theatres and
an emergency treatment area. Rehabilitation, renal
and dental services will also be provided at the new
facility, along with short stay and same day beds as
well as outpatient services, medical imaging, a
rehabilitation gymnasium and a helipad.”
Seven years later, the city is still waiting.

What should be done
• Stop the years of talk and build a second
hospital on the southside of Cairns
• Focus on preventative health
• Keep investing in sporting, cycling and
walking infrastructure