The budget papers show that $6.169 million of that $50 million has been spent in the last two years, presumably on planning for the redevelopment, as there is no physical sign of development activity at the Hospital.

In the previous two years’ budgets, a total of $22 million has been allocated to this project.

The obvious conclusion from the current budget data is that $15.831 million of available funds has not been spent, of which a mere $5 million has been set aside in the 2017-18 allocation.

Clearly the government has no urgency to proceed with our hospital redevelopment.

The principal reason is that this government, in September 2016, embarked on the ill-conceived and widely rejected privatisation of Bowral and four other non-metropolitan hospitals.

The budget papers show that the completion date is now 2020, a two year delay to the original target date. Reason?

The same ill-conceived privatisation initiative of the previous premier and previous health minister.

There seems to be no appetite in government in this budget for privatisation or Public Private Partnerships (PPP) in the announcements for the new much larger hospital expansions and greenfield developments at Tweed Heads, Campbelltown, Concord, Coffs Harbour, Hornsby, Nepean, Randwick... the list goes on.

So why is Bowral Hospital stuck in the slow lane?

Is it awaiting an outcome of the government's negotiations with Ramsay, when other hospitals, such as Macksville and Armidale, can be funded and built by the traditional public hospital process without privatisation and receive substantial allocations to continue planning and construction, with completion dates before Bowral's date of 2020?

The government and its health bureaucracy must be brought to account for this woeful and wasteful process that will deny this community a vital public service for another two years.