'We will reapply for medical centre'

3rd July 2009

DESPITE missing out on the first round of National Rural and Remote Health Infrastructure Program funding, Killarney residents aren't giving up.

Doctor needed: Joseph and Sheila Jensen, like many other elderly Killarney residents, desperately need a medical centre.

Warwick Daily News

DESPITE missing out on the first round of National Rural and Remote Health Infrastructure Program (NRRHIP) funding, Killarney Medical Centre Taskforce chairman Ross Bartley has vowed they will reapply.

“We're going to reapply in the next round, we'll make sure it meets the criteria,” he yesterday told the Daily News.

“The game plan is to move to a Greenfields, or new, site because the group has more or less adopted a policy, if we were successful in gaining funding, of building a purpose-built facility that would suit the Killarney community into the future.

“If we were successful, we had a few options in the way of potential sites. The application was for just over $400,000.”

However this is of little comfort to long-time Killarney residents Joseph and Sheila Jensen.

“Our family, who all live away, have to take a day off from work to get us to (Warwick) if we need to go to the doctor,” Mrs Jensen said.

Currently Mr and Mrs Jensen - who are 89 and 88 respectively - are still able to live at home, and travel to the doctor in Warwick when needed. However if they were to suffer some kind of serious ailment, they would have to move closer to a doctor should a medical centre not come to Killarney, as Mr Jensen only drives around the small country town.

“In an emergency, we would have to call an ambulance,” Mrs Jensen said.

This would mean at least a 30-minute wait between the time they called the ambulance, and when they arrived at Warwick Hospital.