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2,734 operations in a year, one operating room: Singleton Council votes on Tuesday 1 September on backing a hospital petition
Singleton Council holds an extraordinary meeting on Tuesday 1 September, and the agenda is already public. The first item is a mayoral minute asking councillors to back a community petition to the NSW Legislative Assembly for a second surgical theatre unit at Singleton Hospital. The case in the minute is made almost entirely with numbers: 2,734 operations in 2021 from one operating room, the busiest surgical department in the Hunter Valley Sector, a main ward with two bathrooms for 22 beds, and a last renovation about 30 years ago.
What is being asked
Mayoral minute MM24/26 recommends that Council support a community petition calling on the NSW
Government to allocate funding for a second surgical theatre unit, and to upgrade the hospital's
lower ground floor unit due to its unacceptable conditions
. It also recommends that copies
of the petition be made available for signing at the Administration Building, Singleton Public
Library and Singleton Visitor Information Centre, with the minute noting the NSW Parliament
requirement that signatories be over 18 and sign only once.
A petition to the Legislative Assembly is a specific instrument rather than a gesture. Council
is not being asked to fund anything; it is being asked to lend its facilities and its name to a
community campaign aimed at Macquarie Street, which the minute describes as an opportunity to
stand alongside our community and strengthen our call for Macquarie Street to take action
.
The case, in the council's own figures
What makes this minute worth reading rather than summarising is that it argues with data instead of adjectives.
| Measure | Figure |
|---|---|
| Operations performed, 2021 | 2,734, from one operating room |
| Standing of the surgical department | Busiest in the Hunter Valley Sector |
| Emergency presentations | Up 18 per cent in two years |
| Main inpatient ward | Two bathrooms for 22 beds |
| Last renovation of the main facility | About 30 years ago |
| Singleton LGA population | 25,818 in 2026, projected 27,597 by 2036 (5.7 per cent growth) |
| Planned growth nearby | 177,000 people in the Anambah to Branxton Regionally Significant Growth Area |
The minute also puts the hospital's role plainly: it aims to be
a first-class district hospital serving a large regional population as well as those from
surrounding areas including the rapidly expanding Huntlee and Lochinvar suburbs as an easier
alternative to Maitland and Newcastle
. Add to the resident population, it says, a workforce
in military, mining and industry
, demand for maternity services, and
emergency cases heightened by busy highways
.
And it grounds the priority in the council's own consultation: access to health services and
support topped the list of key challenges for our community as ranked by residents
in the
2024 review of the Create Singleton 2035 Community Strategic Plan, with particular concern about
the capacity and condition of Singleton Hospital
.
Two caveats a reader should hold. The 2,734 figure is for 2021, so it is five years old and the minute does not give a more recent one. And every number here is the council's, drawn from its own advocacy document; we have not sought the health district's figures, and a hospital's own account of its theatre capacity may differ.
A drafting point, flagged because the meeting has not happened yet
The recommendation as printed asks the NSW Government to fund
a second surgical theatre unit in Singleton Council
and to upgrade
Singleton Council’s Lower Ground Floor Unit
. The item is titled
Second Surgical Theatre Unit & Upgrades for Singleton Hospital
, and the background text
a page earlier has the first of those as a second surgical theatre unit in Singleton
Hospital
, so the intent is not in doubt.
We raise it only because of where this document is going. The recommendation is the text Council will vote on, the petition is bound for the Legislative Assembly, and a petition that asks Parliament to fund a surgical theatre and a lower ground floor unit inside a council building is asking for something nobody intends. The petition itself is not attached to the report, so we cannot say whether its wording matches. The meeting is on Tuesday 1 September, which is time enough for someone to check.
What else is on the agenda
The extraordinary meeting has two other substantive items, and both are headed for closed
session. GM66/26 concerns a General Manager Executive Recruitment Provider, recommended for closed
council under section 10A(2)(d) of the Local Government Act on the grounds it contains
commercial information of a confidential nature
. DCCS62/26 is tender T2026.006 for the
Singleton Gym and Swim pool enclosure replacement. Both reappear as closed items CC30/26 and
CC29/26.
The recruitment item is worth noting on its own. The agenda is signed by an Acting General Manager, so Singleton is between permanent chief executives and is at the stage of appointing the firm that will run the search.
Our view
Councils pass advocacy motions constantly and most of them are noise. This one is better than most, for a reason worth naming: it argues from its own community consultation and from operating numbers rather than from sentiment, and the specific ask, one more theatre, is small enough to be fundable and concrete enough to be measured. Whether the state responds is a different question, and a petition is a weak instrument. But it is the instrument available to a shire of 26,000 people, and the minute uses it precisely.
What we would watch: whether the motion passes on 1 September, whether the petition's own wording is corrected before it circulates, and whether the health district's theatre-utilisation figures for a more recent year support the 2021 number the case rests on.
Sources
- Singleton Council, Extraordinary Council Meeting Agenda, 1 September 2026 (PDF, downloaded and read in full 30 August 2026): the notice of meeting for Tuesday 1 September 2026 in the Council Chambers, Queen Street Singleton, commencing after the Public Forum at 6:00 PM; mayoral minute MM24/26 in full, including the quoted purpose of the hospital, the quoted workforce and emergency-case passage, the quoted Community Strategic Plan finding on health services topping the list of key challenges and the quoted concern about capacity and condition; the 2,734 operations in 2021 from one operating room, the busiest-in-the-Hunter-Valley-Sector description, the 18 per cent rise in emergency presentations over two years, the two bathrooms for 22 beds, the approximately 30 years since the last renovation, the 25,818 to 27,597 population projection and 5.7 per cent growth rate, and the 177,000 people in the Anambah to Branxton Regionally Significant Growth Area; the quoted recommendation wording including the two references to Singleton Council and the quoted lower ground floor unit and unacceptable conditions phrases; the petition distribution points and the NSW Parliament signatory conditions; the quoted stand-alongside-our-community passage; that the report has no attachments; item GM66/26 and its quoted section 10A(2)(d) grounds; item DCCS62/26 and tender T2026.006; the closed items CC29/26 and CC30/26; and that the agenda is signed by the Acting General Manager.
Methodology. The agenda was downloaded from Singleton Council's InfoCouncil portal and read in full; every figure and quotation is from that document. All of the figures are the council's own, presented in an advocacy document, and we have not sought or seen Hunter New England Local Health District's data on theatre utilisation or emergency presentations. The 2021 operations figure is the most recent one the minute gives. We have not contacted Singleton Council, the health district or any member of parliament. The drafting point is raised as a factual observation about the text as printed, before the meeting, and implies nothing about the merits of the campaign.
Work at Singleton Hospital, or organising this petition? Request a correction and we will check it against the agenda and log the outcome here.