On December 23, two days before Christmas, the Southern Highlands Private Hospital is closing for three weeks. It leaves some inpatients with nowhere to go!

It appears that the public hospital is short staffed, while the aged care facilities may not have available beds, and is that the appropriate place for people needing special care?

Or, could they be shipped to Campbelltown, or Liverpool?

What a disgraceful predicament for the patients and their families, and an indictment on the current health care system, with its state of the art redevelopment of the public hospital!

On reflection the ill-fated hospice that didn't eventuate could have provided back up for this type of emergency, but the State Government would not fund it, while the opposition from some ill-informed Southern Highlands residents undermined those people who tried to establish it.

The early hospices were places for rest and restoration, for example, a petition by the citizens of London to Henry the V111 1538, said they were for the "aid and comfort of the poor sick, blind, aged and impotent persons...wherein they may be lodged, cherished and refreshed"

Well! Not in the Southern Highlands, there is no room at the inn for the patients in the private hospital, and not even a manger either! Will they be compensated by their health funds? I wonder?

We are pleased the council plans to redesign and redevelop the Bowral Memorial Hall to create a quality performance space for our area.

I am very much in favour of the council's plans for redeveloping the foyer area of the Bowral Memorial Hall. However, we do not need a proscenium and retractable seats, as both will interfere with the existing good sound acoustics in the hall. The hall needs to remain flexible for everyone and kept good for music, so that a variety of creative local groups can use it. There is also a need for a Green Room for the band and orchestra as they need backstage room for at least 50 members and the current space is inadequate.

I understand that council is also doing up the Playhouse in Mittagong, which is an excellent space for local and visiting drama group productions and also for smaller musical performances.

It is so important that council have both performance spaces brought up to a good standard for their complementary cultural uses, the Playhouse mainly for drama and the Memorial Hall for larger quality musical performances as well as a range of other community uses.

We all hope that the Bowral Memorial Hall redevelopment prioritises musical performances and no developments take place which will reduce the quality of the sound for orchestral and band performances, which are a really important part of our local cultural experience

As most Australians look forward to a holiday season with family, we must not forget those who will be forced to spend Christmas Day separated from their loved ones.

Aboriginal people are more than 10 times as likely to be targeted by the so-called justice system and sent to prison compared to our non-Indigenous friends and neighbours. Shockingly, this includes kids as young as 10.

More of our mob are behind bars today than during the Royal Commission into Aboriginal Deaths in Custody. Yet the recommendations from that inquiry - like so many others - continue to gather dust.

It's not because we don't have the solutions. It's because our governments don't have the political will to say loud and clear: #BlackLivesMatter here.

That's why we are asking you, the Australian community, to stand with us - through the festive season and beyond. Black lives matter always, not only when we are in the headlines.

Please donate to the Aboriginal Legal Service NSW/ACT to help defend our people against a system that devalues and endangers our lives. Visit www.alsnswact.org.au/blm.

Karly Warner

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