Listen to Councillor BrownThe most precious resource that we need in this shire is water.
Over the past couple of years, council, with government funding, constructed a worthless pipeline from Moruya River to Deep Creek Dam at a cost of some $27 million.
This pipeline was to pump large volumes of water to fill up the dam quickly. So far the filtration plant, which is necessary to complete the efficient working of the pipeline, has not been installed.
The fact remains that the pipeline will only work when we receive copious volumes of rain, but we already have sufficient pipeline in place to convey that water to the dam.
Councillor Allan Brown argued against the pipeline and suggested that the money should have been utilised to construct an off-river storage dam elsewhere in the shire as a backup to Deep Creek.
I understand that two public servants ignored Cr Brown’s urgings and successfully convinced government funding sources and the other councillors of the need for the pipeline.
Now we are left with a useless pipeline that contains 10mg of precious water, which is not pumped anywhere.
A secondary dam would have insulated the shire against drought. It could have been built for less than the cost of the pipeline.
It seems that despite the excellent suggestions put forward by Cr Brown from time to time a clear bias against him by other councillors is apparent.
The reason is simple. Cr Brown agitates against many decisions taken by other councillors and senior staff and exposes incompetence, which is rife in our local administration.
The previous council in particular, including senior staff, merely refused to acknowledge any of Cr Brown’s proposals for fear that it would make him more popular with local residents.
Make no mistake, Cr Brown knows his subject when it comes to water.
It is high time that we started listening to his ideas. If the other councillors think he is wrong, then let’s have a water symposium and experts (including the two infamous public servants who gave us this worthless pipeline) can be invited to address local residents.
Keep up the good work, Cr Brown.
Jan Cairney, Broulee
State support for dementia
Bega MP Andrew Constance is well aware of the NSW Government’s continuing support for organisations like Alzheimer’s Australia NSW (Call for more dementia support, Bay Post/Moruya Examiner, October 9).
The Government has provided $300,000 to Alzheimer’s Australia to promote dementia awareness across NSW this year.
Alzheimer’s Australia NSW also receives $1.1 million in annual funding and $237,000 for the advisory services.
The financial and other support provided by the NSW Government is important because of the growing incidence of dementia, of which Alzheimer’s disease is a part.
The State Government’s funding is directed at programs dealing with dementia training, carer education and resource services.
These specialised services provided by Alzheimer’s Australia NSW are very important to help people through the trauma of caring for a relative or friend with dementia and, in turn, to support the carer.
Paul Lynch, Minister for Ageing and Minister for Disability Services
Putting the record straight
Greater Southern Area Health Service (GSAHS) wishes to correct a recent article (Call for public reporting, October 14) which stated there is no mandatory reporting of golden staph blood infections in public hospitals.
All public hospitals in NSW are required to report specified healthcare-associated infection rates, including staph blood infections, to the NSW Department of Health.
In addition to this mandatory reporting, GSAHS collects and reports on a wider range of community and healthcare-associated infections to ensure patient safety and wellbeing in our hospitals.
GSAHS recently completed an independent review and assessment of infection control standards and processes at Moruya Hospital and all of the recommendations from the review have now been implemented.
The review was conducted by two clinical nurse consultants, who specialise in infection control, and it provided the opportunity to implement changes at the hospital to improve staff knowledge, patient safety and compliance with NSW Health policies.
Specific outcomes from the review included ongoing infection control education programs, improved education and auditing of hand hygiene practices, enhanced use of point-of-use sharps disposal containers, and a review of the cleaning roster and cleaning duties to ensure maintenance of cleaning standards.
One of the actions to improve hand hygiene at the hospital is routine auditing of hand hygiene practices by staff to track changes, feedback trends to staff and management and forwarding of results to the Clinical Excellence Commission and Hand Hygiene Australia.
Staff from Moruya Hospital are among the first in NSW to undergo the recently established national hand hygiene training program, the purpose of which is to develop a national approach and includes education regarding hand hygiene and alcohol-based hand rub, monitoring hand hygiene compliance and measuring infections rates.
GSAHS reassures the local community that it places a high degree of importance on hygiene and infection-control standards in all of its healthcare facilities.
Ken Barnett, Eastern sector manager, GSAHS
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