Petition to save Bay emergency department gets more than 17,000 signatures

The emergency department is slated to close in 2025 when the new Eurobodalla Regional Hospital opens at Moruya.

The petition will be presented by community group Don't Close Batemans Bay Hospital Emergency Department. Among their concerns are the travel time to Moruya, the growing Bay population and the town's high percentage of senior residents.

Group member Ann McClintock said the signatures have come from both residents and visitors to the region.

"There's people that visit Eurobodalla," she said. "Canberra people have signed it - we've got a lot of support from holiday makers.

"One chap in particular, he said he's been coming here for 35 years and the day he signed the petition his sister in law was up at ED. It's the first time they've had to use it but thanks heavens it was there."

The group will meet on Monday, April 22, at the Batemans Bay Soldiers Club and have invited Bega MP Dr Michael Holland, Gilmore MP Fiona Phillips and Southern Local Health District chief executive Margaret Bennett.

Ms McClintock hopes they attend.

"We support the new hospital," she said. "We just need an emergency centre here.

"We're not asking for a big facility like a hospital - we're asking for an emergency centre."

Ms McClintock said even with work starting on the Moruya Bypass - more than 18 months after community consultation ended Transport for NSW have not announced a start date - at more than 30 minutes, the trip is too far.

"These are the things that people aren't thinking about,"she said. "We had a meeting with (mayor) Matt Hatcher a couple of weeks ago and the projected growth of Batemans Bay is incredible in the next 10 years."

A petition for one regional hospital was presented to parliament in 2018 with 3,000 signatures resulting in the then Liberal state government committing to the project in 2020.

Speaking in Federal Parliament in November, Gilmore MP Fiona Phillips said the region does not have the resources to run multiple emergency departments so close to one another.

"The Batemans Bay Urgent Care Clinic I have funded federally, and the NSW Community Health Centre, will fill the critical care gap, covering more than 55 per cent of presentations to the Batemans Bay ED, with emergency patients treated at the new fit for purpose facility," she said.

"So fewer people have to travel to Canberra or Sydney."

Dr Holland told Australian Community Media in December the campaign to keep the Batemans Bay Hospital open would threaten the reality of a Level 4 hospital opening in the Eurobodalla.

"By keeping [the hospitals] divided, we'll continue having a Level 2 hospital," he said.

The petition event at the Soldiers Club starts at 5.30pm.