Mayor Chris Manchester opened the meeting and gave a brief rundown about what has happened so far. The Mayor said, “In early February the Shire came across a notice from the Government that in their Mini Budget in November, they decided to sell off the nursing home beds from 11 facilities across NSW”. The Mayor said he had informed the other councillors and said they kept it close to their chests, mainly because they did not want to alarm the residents of the nursing home until they knew what the situation was. “Since then we took the fight to the State Government and made representations to John Della Bosca’s office and to the Premier himself. In Late February Greater Southern Area Health Service (GSAHS) let out what was going to happen with the Nursing Homes across NSW. Since then we got an assurance from the Premier and Della Bosca that the viability of the Hospital was not in question and that the beds would stay local”. The Mayor said he was very dubious about the commitment that the beds would stay “local”, as local could of meant Cootamundra or Young and he sought commitments that the beds would not be shipped off from Harden to another area.

Expressions of Interest (EOI) for the nursing home beds were called for in April and closed in May and the Mayor said that although he couldn’t be sure, they were fairly confident that no EOI were received for the Harden Nursing Home, but he assumed there may have been and expressed the need to continue the fight with the number one priority being that the beds remain and the Hospital retains the services as they currently stand, and looking at other possible options.

“Our main concern is getting a stronger commitment from the government that the beds will stay and the hospital will remain unchanged because it’s such an important part of this community, and once we loose it we will never get it back, like what has happened in the past with other government facilities in the Shire”, he said.