HUNDREDS of patients recovering from surgery or cancer treatment, as well as rural families, junior doctors and medical students, have been evicted from discounted accommodation on the Prince of Wales Hospital campus at Randwick after the building was declared unsafe.
Residents of the Vera Adderley residence were told to move out by tomorrow. The local area health service said last night it was trying to find emergency alternative accommodation.
A number of medical students, patients and parents of seriously ill children told the Herald they could not afford private rental in the notoriously expensive eastern suburbs and did not know where else they could go.
Norbert Keough moved into the 11-storey building in February after an operation to remove titanium rods in his spine. Facing four to six months of recovery, and without any family in Australia or income during this time, he was forced to move out of his unit in Surry Hills.
The chief executive of the South Eastern Sydney and Illawarra Area Health Service, Terry Clout, has apologised for not giving residents more notice.
"Any amount of risk was a risk too great to take," he said in a statement. "I regret that residents were not personally contacted."
A third-year medical student, Pearl Wang, 20, said her $90-a-week room was all she could afford and no low-cost housing was available near the Randwick campus, which supports four hospitals, the University of NSW and a number of research institutes. "I'm really grateful that I've been able to stay here but now I'm really concerned about where I'm going to live."
A spokesman for John Della Bosca, the Health Minister, said the area health service had informed the minister of the problem only yesterday.
"The minister has directed the area health service to find alternative accommodation for residents urgently and to keep them informed," he said.
Ciorstan Smark, of Wollongong, has regularly stayed in a shared facility-room during the past two years while her daughter Siobhan, 7, undergoes multiple surgeries for a brain tumour at the Sydney Children's Hospital.
She said the $33-a-night accommodation was very basic but vital to give parents, particularly those from outside Sydney, respite from days spent by their child's bedside.
"Already these parents are under tremendous stress.
"They have other kids, they often have to give up work or sell their house.
"These are not people who have a lot of money to spend on $150-a-night hotel rooms."
She said the building was poorly maintained and would cost a lot to repair, but argued the "social costs" of forcing parents to drive back and forth from hospital or be away from their sick child were higher.
The building's balconies were sealed off last December when concrete cancer was detected.
The Opposition health spokeswoman, Jillian Skinner, said the building had been neglected for years.
"John Della Bosca should be honest and release the structural report and explain to the public why he's allowed this building to become so rundown," she said.
Email a friend