Peter Gutwein and Sarah Courtney must come to Parliament this week with answers to the many questions surrounding the $689 million redevelopment of the Royal Hobart Hospital.
Shadow Minister for Health Sarah Lovell said the Liberals have offered no confidence and no comfort to the many Tasmanians waiting to get a hospital bed.
"Sarah Courtney confirmed today she has no timeframe for the opening of K Block, and she appears to have no clear plan to resolve the issues preventing the opening.
"She's called out two major issues - noisy air conditioning and concerns about the safety of drinking water - but there are also certification issues for a range of systems that support effective and safe operation of the hospital.
"Any minister in control of a project of this significance should be demanding a remediation plan with clear timeframes for issues to be resolved.
"Either Sarah Courtney knows those timeframes but is embarrassed by the length of the delay, or she doesn't know. If that's the case she should make a commitment to Tasmanians to get that information and make it publicly available."
Ms Lovell said the Liberals have been misleading Tasmanians about the state of the project.
"Sarah Courtney has been insisting for months that the hospital would open in February.
"But some of the tenders for essential work only closed in the last few weeks and it's not clear whether the work has even been awarded, let alone completed.
"The Liberals must have known there was no way the hospital would open in February, yet they left it until the last minute to confirm that bad news.
"K Block is the government's only strategy to alleviate the crisis in our hospital and health system, but nobody can – or will - say when it will be open to patients."
Sarah Lovell
Shadow Health Minister
