History of Committee | SaveMonaValeHospital

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History of Save Mona Vale Hospital Community Action Group Incorporated

The fight's not over!

In 1999 Dr Stephen Christly, CEO of the Northern Sydney Area Health Board (NSAHB), held a public meeting in Mona Vale and announced a plan to close both Mona Vale Hospital (MVH) and Manly Hospital (MH), as well as to build a new centralised hospital at Frenchs Forest.

There was a public outcry - and in 2000 a community group, Save Mona Vale Hospital Community Action Group Incorporated (SMVH) was formed to fight to save the local hospital. Its committee aimed to examine the claims made by NSAHB and distribute factual information to the community.

NSAHB responded to the new group by calling for a community consultation but did not invite the SMVH committee. SMVH’s responded by holding a rally to which the community was invited at Pittwater Rugby Park. Over six thousand people attended, demanding the retention of MVH. Thirty-six thousand people also signed petitions to save our hospital.

SMVH received tremendous support from individuals and other community groups - and donations poured in. The group now had support and funds to pursue a strong campaign.

Six major rallies, many community consultations and forums throughout the area attracted significant media attention. Large advertisements were placed in The Manly Daily newspaper. Radio interviews and letter writing campaigns were conducted. We had an army of letterbox droppers who leafleted the whole of the Northern Beaches multiple times.

The committee also commissioned and published several in-depth studies of matters related to location and health provision with independent expert input, for example:

traffic problems arounds the site for the proposed new hospital at Frenchs Forest.
bushfires and flooding on the Wakehurst Parkway – the most direct route from Pittwater to the Frenchs Forest site.
demographic studies – that predicted patients would come to the Frenchs Forest site from north-west Sydney as well as the Northern Beaches and overwhelm the new hospital.
environmental consequences.

Such was the community support for MVH and anger at its proposed closure that a NSW Upper House Inquiry (MVHPI) was held in 2005.

Finally, in 2013, after much confusion, the state Liberal Government announced Frenchs Forest as the preferred site. MVH was to enjoy a role complementary to the new hospital. “Complementary” was not defined.

Since 2000 the Pittwater community has shown remarkable solidarity and strength in its commitment to retaining the original hospital. Some outstanding wins included:

Maternity reopened at MVH 2012
Intensive Care retained at MVH

Such was community feeling that in 2005 an independent state MP, Alex McTaggart, was elected to the normally safe Liberal seat of Pittwater on a platform to save the hospital. In 2007, a new Liberal MP Rob Stokes was returned to the seat, also promising to save the hospital.

However, in mid-2018 in the lead-up to the opening of new hospital at Frenchs Forest, NSW Health briefed residents about services that would remain available at MVH once Northern Beaches Hospital (NBH) opened. Many were appalled to discover the emergency department and other acute services would be closed.

A public meeting was held in response at the Mona Vale Memorial Hall on July 18, 2018, with a full to overflowing house, and unanimously passed the following motion, which was later adopted as a mission statement for SMVH:

"Mona Vale Hospital must be retained as a Level 3 hospital to maintain the health services as appropriate for a Level 3 hospital for the Pittwater community, either by:

the original Mona Vale hospital building being retained and renovated to a Level 3 standard

the building of a new Level 3 hospital on the same site. To achieve this, no other buildings should be developed within the footprint of the original hospital. July 18, 2018"

The committee is committed to following the wishes of the community expressed at that meeting.

We believed this could be achieved by renovating the existing buildings at MVH as has happened at Port Kembla Hospital. That hospital was built at the same time as MVH, by the same builder to the same design. Concerns about asbestos and concrete cancer were successfully dealt with at Port Kembla during the renovation.

After July 2018, the committee began a campaign for emergency and all acute services to be retained at MVH. After the closure of acute services the focus shifted to reopening and restoring those services.

Rallies and forums have been held. Outreach to the community has also included: running a Facebook page; regular emails to supporters; a number of letterbox drops; and contacts with doctors, nurses and other staff.

SMVH had been purely focused on MVH. However, since October 30, 2018, the night of the opening of the new hospital, our Facebook page and email address have become conduits for the community to report their experiences at NBH - and some of these have been extremely disturbing. The new hospital has been plagued with problems since opening. Many in the community have expressed serious concerns about their experiences at NBH - both as patients and staff - and attempting to access its services.

The depth of these systemic problems was revealed by a NSW Parliamentary investigation that began in October 2019. SMVH prepared a submission to this Upper House inquiry into the Operation and Management of Northern Beaches Hospital.

The outbreak of the coronavirus in early 2020 has further demonstrated the need for acute services at MVH, giving added impetus to the community's calls for retention of MVH's main building, once the asbestos has been removed. This valuable public infrastructure could provide extra beds for the forecast thousands of patients needing hospital treatment.

However, if this call by the community is unsuccessful, our attention will turn to building a new Level 3 hospital on the same site. To achieve this, no other buildings should be developed within the footprint of the original hospital.

We also recommend that the NSW government take control of the NBH from its private operator Healthscope to remedy the hospital’s systemic problems and to rebuild the community’s trust in the delivery of hospital services on the northern beaches.