Kiama byelection Labor candidate Katelin McInerney, Health Minister Ryan Park and Shellharbour MP Anna Watson at the site of the new Shellharbour Hospital at Dunmore. Photo: Jen White.
On Thursday Health Minister Ryan Park told a NSW parliamentary committee that he hadn’t made a decision on whether the new Shellharbour Hospital would open with a helipad.
Just over a day later (22 August), Mr Park was at Dunmore on the site of the under-construction hospital to announce that a rooftop helipad would indeed be part of the more than $780 million New Shellharbour Hospital and Integrated Services Project.
When asked what had changed in a day, the Keira MP said he wasn’t in a position during Thursday’s budget estimates hearing to announce the helipad.
“I mean, I think people would be reasonable to see that I wasn’t in a position to do that,” he said.
“This was an announcement we wanted to make in the community that’s going to benefit.
“Let me assure you, the issue of the helipad we’ve been working on, as I outlined in the estimates hearing yesterday, for some time.”
Mr Park was joined by Shellharbour MP Anna Watson, who has long advocated for the inclusion of a helipad, as well as the Labor candidate for the Kiama byelection Katelin McInerney.
The announcement came hours after the NSW Opposition Leader Mark Speakman pledged that a NSW Liberal Government would deliver the helipad.
“Over the last few months, this issue has become more and more important to work towards a decision on,” Mr Park said on Friday.
“And it’s very simple, if we would have waited for the hospital to be completely built, then we would have had to essentially retrofit it, or do it later.
“It would have come at much greater expense.
“I had to get to a point where I was satisfied that there was enough funding within the existing envelope that we could do this.
“I’ve worked with Health Infrastructure, the team at the Illawarra Shoalhaven Local Health District, as well as the team from the NSW Ministry of Health, to work through that process and we’ve got to a point where we’re ready to commit to that.
“The helipad will be delivered in 2027 along with the hospital. We won’t be doing a retrofit; it will be embedded into the existing project.
“It comes at a cost of around $10 million. We always have broad contingencies in place for a project this size; we’ve been able to work through our existing funding envelope and be able to deliver this.”
Mr Park acknowledged Ms Watson’s advocacy for the helipad and said Ms McInerney had also raised it with him following her loss in the 2023 state election, as an issue that concerned the community.
“This is absolutely something that I have continued to hear about and that our region absolutely needs,” Ms McInerney said.
“Sadly, today, when I was out further south in the electorate, we had an awful accident occur on our major motorway that needed helicopter support.
“We have to have the essential infrastructure in our health system to service not only our growing community, but also the communities further down south.”
