WOW - an extra $40 million in the NSW Budget for the redevelopment of the Cowra Hospital.
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Where did that come from?
After originally budgeting $70 million for the project the NSW Government found another $40 million in Tuesday's budget.
We should never look a gift horse in the mouth so we'll gladly take the money but how did NSW Health get the budget for the project so wrong in the first place.
What was proposed originally wasn't a redevelopment at all.
To put it bluntly, it was a downgrade of Cowra's health services.
Following Tuesday announcement it was revealed the additional funding boost will enable more services and facilities to be delivered.
Among them are an extra emergency department bay, a second birthing suite, two additional inpatient beds, three additional chairs for renal and oncology, four additional dental chairs, enhanced training, educational facilities and landscaped facilities once the hospital is built.
The funding also means Cowra's Clinic Services Plan will be completed, something Cowra mayor Bill West says is just as important as the redevelopment.
"It's great news and its also great news we'll get our Clinical Services Plan completed," Cr West said on Tuesday after the extra funding was announced.
What the announcement does show is that the signs are now good that Cowra will get the health service upgrade it deserves, thanks to the efforts of the Cowra community.
The signs aren't as positive for the Wyangala Dam wall project getting to a shovel ready stage in the near future.
There is money in the budget for the project but it is only $5.6 million for what the State describes as "early works".
The budget revealed, the Greens say, the government is deprioritising its dam projects after committing only $9.4 million to early works for the Wyangala and Dungowan Dams over the next 12 months.
"Together, these dams are now estimated to cost more than $3 billion but the allocation in the budget will barely pay for the shovels to get them started. It's clear the Government can't make the Dungowan and Wyangala dam projects stack up but they're not ready to publicly axe these white elephant projects just yet," the Greens said.
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