The ACT Liberal Party called on the ACT Government to break its promise on putting a hospice on Acton peninsula.
The leader of the party, Kate Carnell, said the hospice would become a white elephant unless Government diverted millions of dollars from other urgent health priorities into the complex.
Work on the 17-bed hospice is due to begin next month.
Leading physicians, including one of Canberra’s most experienced and respected physicians and specialists, Marcus Faunce, have publicly condemned putting the hospice on the Acton site, saying it should go next to a hospital, either Calvary and Woden.
Dr Faunce said proximity to health facilities was of more importance to dying patients than the view out the window.
The main vacant sites next to these hospitals, however, have been ear-marked for housing, though Bruce Hostel, next to Calvary, has beds and kitchen facilities. It is ear-marked for demolition.
The Labor Party had promised that health facilities would go on Acton after acknowledging the decision by the former Alliance Government to close Royal Canberra on the Acton site, which it disagreed with, was irreversible.
Mr Berry has defended the decision to build on Acton saying the site is the best for hospice and that community groups involved supported it.
Ms Carnell, however, said that in recent months she had been contacted by health professionals, planners, community groups, the Australian Medical Association, former members of the board of health, cancer and hospice and society members, the ACT council of aging and senior health and planning bureaucrats who did not want to be indentified who all agreed that Acton was the wrong place for the hospice.
Present and former members of the Hospice Society have said to me that they want the hospice to go next to an existing hospital, preferably Calvary, but they felt they had to go along with the Acton site because they had been fighting for a hospice for eight years and the Acton site was better than not having a hospice at all.
Ms Carnell promised that she would not attack the Labor Party for breaking an election promise if it did the sensible thing and re-thought the siting decision. Acton was unsuitable economically and medically.
The budget was $10 million in the red in 1991-92 and the Acton site with duplication of medical, pharmaceutical and meal services could not be justified.