WA:Union protests against hospital contract

AAP General News (Australia)
08-01-2011
WA:Union protests against hospital contract

PERTH, Aug 1 AAP - Around 100 Royal Perth Hospital workers have held a stopwork meeting
to oppose state government plans to contract out support services for Perth's new Fiona
Stanley Hospital to a private company.

The West Australian government has announced that Serco Australia will run management
and support services at Fiona Stanley when it opens in mid-2014.

Health Minister Kim Hames said WA Health would continue to employ doctors, nurses and
allied health professionals to provide healthcare, but Serco would carry out the behind-the-scenes
work at the new hospital.

He said the facilities management services contract for the new public hospital in
Murdoch, in Perth's south, was worth up to $4.3 billion over 20 years.

Monday's protest was organised by United Voice, the union representing hospital support
workers and further stopwork meetings are planned at other WA public hospitals.

Union Secretary Dave Kelly told the meeting the government had negotiated the Serco
deal without transparency and behind closed doors.

"Serco are a big company who are expert at one thing and that's how to make a profit
out of taxpayers' money."

He said the company had "made a hash of" Australian immigration detention centres that
it managed and "made a fortune" in the process.

Mr Kelly said the WA government had said there no services would be privatised in existing
public hospitals before the next election, but workers could not trust the government
not to do so if it won a second term.

The services to be covered by Serco include catering, cleaning, linen, security, energy
and utilities, estate and grounds maintenance, sterilisation, health records management,
internal logistics, supplies management and reception services.

AAP ldj/goc/

KEYWORD: HOSPITAL WA (WITH PIX)

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