Yoicks! We've been porkbarrelled with strings attached

The Prime Minister, Hon. John Winston Howard, came to Grafton in the marginal electorate of Page on 10 October 2007.
While there he announced $18 million dollars of Commonwealth funding to upgrade Grafton Hospital accident and emergency department as well as three operating theatres.

However, this funding is dependent on Grafton Hospital re-establishing the archaic local hospital board system.
See link:http://abc.net.au/news/stories/2007/10/10/2056173.htm?section=justin

While many Clarence Valley residents would be glad of any additional health funding, few would see this as adequate compensation for the fact that under John Howard's 'reign' the Commonwealth has let it constitutional responsibility for health services drop to only around 41 per cent of total NSW public hospital funding.

Most Valley residents would recall the fact that the Howard Government has been boasting for years about its healthy budget surpluses and, wonder why it is only in the phoney election campaign that Grafton Hospital is being offered in principal additional funding.

Myself, nothing will compensate me for having to wait six hours and fifteen minutes on a hard chair in the waitingroom of Grafton emergency department until I could be admitted for surgery after an accident.

Shame, Howard, shame.