Last week HACSU met with Premier Jeremy Rockliff and other senior health officials to discuss the looming closure of Healthscope’s St Helen’s Private Hospital. We're afraid to say the government was all talk and no action.

While the Rockliff government boasted that they’ve got grand plans for places like St John’s Park in the future, the fact is that in two weeks’ time there’s going to be very little for the community and workers when St Helen’s is closed for good.

We pushed the Premier to finally tell us the truth about why this situation had been allowed get so out of hand. Apart from blaming Healthscope (who we agree have a lot to answer for) they didn’t have a single explanation for their failure to intervene earlier – it’s especially disappointing given the public cries for maintenance on the building for years.

Instead of answers, all they gave us were more excuses. Excuses like it being too expensive to keep St Helen’s running and that they didn’t really like the setting anyway. The problem with these excuses is that they do nothing for patients who currently rely on St Helen’s, and they do nothing for treating doctors and workers.

It’s simply unacceptable that Healthscope and the Rockliff government have wiped their hands of an issue that directly affects Tasmanian lives – and we made it clear that we’re not going away, and they’re still responsible.

Because of our action they’ve committed that they’ll step up and offer current St Helen’s staff jobs in the public service. If you’re interested in working in the public service, please contact us urgently if you haven’t already so we can make sure you are offered a position as soon as possible.

We’ll also continue our campaign to ensure all current staff have ongoing positions whether you’ve received a redundancy or not – and we’ll keep up the fight alongside the community for mental health and mother baby services to be replaced and expanded in the public health system.