The
Royal Melbourne Hospital is going to be on high alert during the Commonwealth
Games, Dr Christine Kilpatrick told the Hun today.

They’ve
been working with Games organisers to coordinate hospital staff, security and
transport. Presumably by security they mean stopping those pesky public hospital
patients getting near the athletes, rather than, say, introducing leg shackles.

But
surely adequate hospital staff and transport are essential at all times, and not
just for Commonwealth Games athletes?

Or are
athletes to get preferential treatment? We thought the world of sport was the
last bastion of socialism, not a new feudalism for the 21st century.

In fact, the Royal
Melbourne’s emergency
department stats look pretty good – so we can’t throw too much mud, unlike
Bronwyn Pike’s spokesman Ben Hart and Liberal spokeswoman for health Helen
Shardey, who’ve been engaged in a slinging match over a presser
issued by Shardey on Monday which apparently has a remarkable resemblance to another
issued by her predecessor David Davis (what were his parents thinking?)
in November last year.

Shardey cleverly
defended her plagiarism, explaining that the meeja release was basically the
same as last year’s because Pike and Bracksie still haven’t fixed the health
system. Well at least “…the Acting Premier didn’t pinch any quotes from previous
press releases,” rejoined former Herald Sun tyro Hart.