Shuttle bus is infrequent and impractical

The press release from Marie Andrews (Peninsula News, 7 June 2010) states that the Woy Woy shuttle bus is available Monday to Friday, to allow relatives and friends visit patients in Wyong Hospital.

This is an out-and-out lie.

The bus, in fact, is only available three days a week (with rumours that it is to be cut to twice a week) and only if a seat is booked early enough on the previous day.

Furthermore, the statement that, "bookings can be made seven days a week from 6.30am to 10pm" is a blatant attempt to mislead the unknowledgeable into imagining that there is a frequent and/or flexible service on the days that the bus actually operates.

The reality is that there is one trip on each of the three working days, leaving early in the morning and allowing only about one to one-and-a-half hours at the hospital before the bus returns to Woy Woy.

Most of this time at the hospital is outside the official visiting hours.

Such an arrangement hardly constitutes a practical scheme for easing the burden of Woy Woy residents who need to go to Wyong Hospital (which, despite the title, is actually at Kanwal).

Given the miserable state of public transportation services to the hospital, the sole option is to drive a private car, and, despite making maximum use of the available service, I have personally had to spend over $600 in petrol costs alone, in visiting my wife while she was an in-patient at Wyong.

This situation can only get worse, as the Woy Woy population grows and ages, and, if the Woy Woy unit had to be closed, one wonders at the decision to concentrate rehab facilities at Wyong when the regional hospital is at Gosford - a location better provided with both specialist facilities and transport services.

Email, 17 Jun 2010 Bruce Hyland, Daley's Point