Launch of Change.Org petition on Lady Cilento name on hospital

Summary

The Australian Institute for Progress has launched a Change.Org petition to retain the Lady Cilento name for Brisbane’s children’s hospital. (Web address: chn.ge/2LGHTjc ).

Lady Cilento was a pioneering and hugely influential woman in medicine and a more fitting namesake for a Queensland hospital than Princess Alexandra, Prince Charles, or Queen Elizabeth II.

Neither the government nor the medical staff have any business erasing her name from this building, and any of the imagined difficulties could easily be managed away.

It is a good cultural practice to memorialise great contributors in buildings and monuments.

Analysis

The Lady Cilento hospital was built by the Bligh and Newman governments, with the latter giving it its name. The change is occurring because of a “staff revolt”. The government gives a number of reasons for this revolt which are nonsensical.

People think the hospital is a private hospital because it has a person’s name attached to it. If this were an issue then the PA, QEII and Prince Charles would all have problems. The neighbouring Mater Hospital, which runs both private and public would also need to change its name.

Polling supports the need for a public hospital and a name change. The polling as revealed in the Minister’s statement does no such thing. It reveals that 90% of parents want a children’s hospital, and that wish has been fulfilled. It also claims that 23% of parents think the Lady Cilento is private. This is meaningless without polling figures for a range of other hospitals with similar names.

It is largely irrelevant what the public thinks at the moment. Most will arrive in an ambulance, or by referral from a doctor. Ambos and doctors know the ownership structure and appropriateness of the hospital.

The institution is not recognised internationally because of its name. Some of the most prestigious medical institutions are endowed with names: John Hopkins, Mayo, and our own Walter and Eliza Hall Institute, or the QIMR Berghofer Medical Research Institute. If researchers are having problems getting invitations to international conferences perhaps they should look to themselves rather than the name.

The Hospital Foundation could raise more money with a name change. Raising funds is hard – as an independent think tank we know that. But the name should not be used as an alibi for failure.

Further the public consultation is a sham. The government’s consultation website at https://www.getinvolved.qld.gov.au/gi/consultation/5305/view.html allows multiple voting, does not allow comments (despite asking for your opinion), currently claims to have no responses, when we alone have voted three times, and generates a record of your response which has a data field where the name of the consultation should be (see attachment).

Quote

“Queensland Health’s performance is deteriorating, and doctors, health professionals and bureaucrats should have better things to do with their time than dreaming up excuses, and then conducting incompetent polls to back them, in a political exercise to change the name of the institution where they work.

The hospital belongs to Queensland, as does Lady Phyllis Cilento’s legacy which has been fittingly recognised and memorialised in this magnificent children’s hospital. The name should stay.” Graham Young, Executive Director.

For further comment contact Graham Young 0411 104 801.