Save The Wesley Hydrotherapy Pool

Hi y'all. My regular reader is probably wondering why this has been such a bad month for blog postings. Well, my pathetic excuse is that I've been busy. I've recently become caught up in the campaign to save the Wesley Hospital Hydrotherapy Pool. You may have seen one or two recent postings on the subject. My wife is a user of the pool and one of the thousands of people who will suffer when the Uniting Church (which owns the Wesley Hospital) closes the pool in July. I know some of the people who are being abandoned by the church (whose advertising 'tag line' is “Helping with heart and soul” - if you can believe the hypocrisy in that – they're closing the pool to make more room for high-paying acute patient care that will increase the hospital's earnings by tens of millions each year) so I know what a terrible blow the closure of this facility will be to all of them. The Brisbane City Council is pretending that scrapping vital healthcare infrastructure has nothing to do with them but they're happy enough to give planning permission with no strings attached (like continuity of service until an alternative facility can be built, for example.) One campaigner who tried to speak to the Mayor was told that he was "too busy" to concern himself with such matters. Nice guy, huh?

Anyway, I've written the campaign a website and attended meetings and so on and it's all kept me rather busy. So, I will just point you to a couple of places to go for further information and then I'll shut up about it. Firstly, you should look at the blog of the campaign: http://savethewesleypool.blogspot.com which is full of harrowing stories by bereft pool users. Then you should go to the website: http://www.savethewesleypool.org.au which doesn't have much content yet but which contains a form for you to sign up and show your support.

Personally, I am disgusted that people who desperately need the physiotherapy they get at the pool in order to maintain their mobility in the teeth of degenerative diseases like arthritis and cerebral palsy, are simply being dumped by the Uniting Church. It is an appalling way to treat people who are working hard to avoid becoming (worse) invalids and to maintain some independence and dignity. The Uniting Church, the Brisbane City Council and the Wesley Hospital management have shown a callous indifference to the plight of thousands of needy people and their families.

'Nuff said.