Queensland residents draws to the attention of the House to:

1. Reinstate the Mareeba operating theatres to a minimum of 3 - 4 days per week with emergency theatre capacity to maintain the medical officer pool and scope of practise including obstetrics.

2. Reinstate the services at Mareeba Hospital to pre-2014.

3. Immediately bring into operation the Laparoscopic Unit that has been idle for 3 years at the Mareeba Hospital.

4. Acknowledge the population growth of Mareeba and that Mareeba is the largest urban centre on the Tablelands as per Cummings Economics report “Regional Health and Hospital Trends in Tropical North Queensland – with particular reference to the Mareeba Hospital’ (Ref: J3040 Feb 2017) by systematically providing more services at the Mareeba Hospital to meet the growing needs of om community, including chemotherapy treatment and dialysis services.

5. Direct the State Health Minister to identify and relocate elsewhere those persons who have been responsible for the reduction in services at the Mareeba Hospital.

6. Negotiate with the Federal Government to fund bulk billing services in Mareeba to compensate for the loss of $2.2 million in CO AG funding as at 30 September 2017.

A public meeting was held in Mareeba on Tuesday 2^nd May 2017 that was attended by approximately 1,000 people who overwhelmingly supported the above-mentioned points.

Your petitioners, therefore, request that the Queensland Parliament address these matters with the utmost urgency and resolve to fund the necessary steps to reinstate the Mareeba Hospital to its full capacity and function to compliment the Cairns Hospital as the CHHHS Strategic and Operational plan.