‘Disrespectful’: Mettam accused of running women’s hospital scare campaign
Helping Little Hands chief executive Joanne Beatty rejected accusations from Health Minister Amber-Jade Sanderson that parents were being scared by a Liberal misinformation campaign over the location of the $1.8 billion Women and Babies Hospital.
Flanked by parents of vulnerable newborns Beatty, a vocal opponent of the hospital being built in Murdoch, backed Liberal leader Libby Mettam’s election promise to tear up construction agreements and build it at QEII next to Perth Children’s Hospital.
Liberal leader Libby Mettam and Helping Little Hands chief executive Joanne Beatty flanked by parents of vulnerable newborns.Credit: Hamish Hastie
An hour earlier Sanderson accused Mettam of scaring parents by twisting facts from a 2023 business case that triggered the government’s decision to abandon QEII.
“The leader of the Liberal Party Libby Mettam continues to misrepresent what is in the business case, and she is leading a campaign of misinformation and is frightening prospective parents, and I’m calling on her to stop,” she said.
“If we could have built the hospital on the [QEII] site safely, of course, the government would have done that, but we were faced with unmitigated risks and we had to make a clear-eyed decision about what was in the best interests.”
Sanderson said the majority of clinicians supported the Murdoch location.
Beatty said Sanderson’s comments were disrespectful and rejected her claim that clinicians supported the government’s decision.
“I think it’s really quite a disrespectful comment to suggest that, simply because we’re parents and not clinicians, that we don’t have an appropriate voice or a level of our own expertise,” she said.
“[Vulnerable babies] are fighting for their lives and to impose a journey of over 20 kilometres in an ambulance built into your system, is just wrong.
