EXPRESS The
Wednesday, June 21, 2017
Here are the facts
Locally owned and proudly independent
Mareeba Hospital’s Medical Superintendant Dr Tjaart Grobbelaar calls meeting to set the record straight By Rebecca Wallis Several issues raised in the ‘Save Mareeba Hospital’ petition and May meeting were called into contention last week when Medical Superintendent Tjaart Grobbelaar held a meeting to set the record straight. Speaking at a Chamber of Commerce luncheon on Wednesday, June 14 at Mareeba RSL, Dr Grobbelaar said that the level of care and services at Mareeba Hospital was at an all-time high and that very few services had been removed while many
more had been added over the past five years. “I think we have probably not kept the community well informed as to what was happening in the hospital and I think the fact that there was a lot of ignorance and a lot of fear about what was happening triggered that response,” he said of the May 2 meeting which over 1000 concerned residents attended. Dr Grobbelaar went on to site instances where the hospital in the early 2000s was in dire straits, with a high proportion of locum doctors, resignations, low staff mo-
rale, a non-existent surgical theatre, high instances of patient relocation to Cairns and multiple coronary enquiries. But in the past five years many changes have been made to improve the hospital with more plans in place to help the hospital go from strength to strength. “In 2013 we got permission to increase our staffing to nine senior doctors, eight juniors and two interns,” said Dr Grobbelaar. “That’s a big difference from the three seniors and one junior we had in 2010.” CONTINUED P3
Wild ride!
Round One of the Great Northern bull riding series took place in Mareeba on Saturday night. FULL DETAILS P21
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