Yep, you heard right.
Our little community hospital (Mersey)has been repeatedly dissed over the years and recently we lost our ICU in decisions made much more at a state political level than with patient care in mind.
The Australian prime minister, John Howard is way behind in the polls (and belongs to the "Liberal"=conservative party as opposed to the Tasmanian state majority "Labor"=leftist party) and needed an attention grabber, so he decided to do an end run around the Tasmanian State government and propose a FIRST EVER federal takeover of a hospital (OURS).
He flew in to Tasmania and came to our hospital and stood out in the parking lot for about 30 minutes talking to reporters. Nikki and I happened to be driving by and stopped (so we had no camera - dang). We parked and walked right up to the crowd and stood about 15 feet from the guy. No metal detectors. No $1000 contributions to the party. Just walk right up and watch. There were a few policeman meandering calmly about and 2 or 3 tough looking guys in dark suits and black glasses, but that was it. WAY cool.
The proposal, by the way, has caused a heated national debate and photos appeared the next day in all the local and even national papers.
I wanted to stay and shake his hand, but Nikki wouldn't let me for 2 reasons:
1 We had stuff to do
2 The guy is a friend of George Bush.
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