The Andrews Labor Government is taking action to help workers affected by the closure of HealthScope’s Geelong Private Hospital find new roles doing the jobs they want.
Minister for Health Jill Hennessy today announced 117 positions will be available at Barwon Health for Geelong Private Hospital workers, including nursing, allied health, administration and patient services assistants positions.
The new positions will play a key role helping deliver Barwon Health’s flagship services – which are set to grow.
Additional positions will also be made available at Mercy Health and Western Health, who will work with HealthScope to match nurses and other staff members with vacancies at their sites. An expression of interest process will begin next week.
Affected workers will still receive their entitlements from HealthScope, including redundancy payments.
The Geelong Private Hospital is closing its doors because it can no longer remain financially sustainable in a crowded market of three private hospitals.
The Liberals broke a key election promise in 2010 to build a second public hospital for Geelong, instead signing up to a secret, dodgy deal that saw another private hospital thrown into the mix at Waurn Ponds.
The Labor Government is delivering the bolstered $33 million Barwon Health North project, which will include an urgent call centre, medical imaging, pathology, pharmacy, consulting suites and renal dialysis services to give patients in Geelong more access to services, closer to home.
Quotes attributable to Minister for Health Jill Hennessy
“Nurses and other health care workers support Victorians at the toughest of times, and we’ll support them during this challenging period.”
“These staff are supremely qualified and valuable professionals and they’d be a tremendous asset to Barwon Health.”
Quote attributable to Member for Geelong Christine Couzens
“These assurances give some comfort to many of those affected. I feel for all the HealthScope workers who have lost their jobs at such short notice.”
Quote attributable to Member for Bellarine Lisa Neville
“Barwon Health is growing, treating more patients and offering more services than ever before. We need more highly-skilled professionals so that we can give Geelong families an even higher quality of care.”
Quote attributable to Member for Lara John Eren
“We said we’d stand with workers affected by the closure of Geelong Private Hospital and that’s exactly what we’re doing.”
Reviewed 19 August 2020