Author: Stephen Taylor

LOCAL hospitals are preparing for a spike in COVID-19 cases over the next few weeks. Acting on instructions from the state government restrictions were placed on elective surgery from Friday 1 October, and beds were set aside to treat pandemic patients. Ramsay Health Care’s chief nurse and clinical services director Dr Bernadette Eather said elective procedures at the company’s hospitals, including Beleura Private, were being reduced. “As was the case last year when elective surgery was reduced, [we] are ready and willing to assist with the state’s pandemic response.” Dr Eather said Ramsay Health was “not currently treating any COVID-19…

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IT WILL be “tickets please” from a real station when the old Cheltenham railway station building is erected at Mornington Railway Preservation Society’s base at Moorooduc. The 140-year-old timber structure was recently trucked down to Moorooduc in flat-pack form where it will be assessed in detail before being put together to join other historic pieces of railway infrastructure on the site. The preservation society’s president Andrew Swayne sees it as an “absolute landmark project” that will provide a missing link in the station’s redevelopment. “We couldn’t even get the old station from Mornington,” he said, referring to the line which…

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STAFF at testing centres at Rosebud and Seaford have returned the highest number of positive COVID-19 test results “since the start of the pandemic”. Dr Sally Shaw said tests at the centres recorded 11 positive cases of the virus over the past two weeks – including five on Wednesday and four on Thursday. She said no sites on the Mornington Peninsula had been added to the state government’s COVID-19 exposure site website since 10 September, which meant possibly hundreds of exposure sites were not being listed. “We have been fairly sheltered so far on the peninsula and have all worked…

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WILDLIFE groups are frantically seeking to save a large mob of kangaroos from being slaughtered on a Cape Schanck property. Members of Mornington Peninsula Wildlife Action Group said the kangaroos appeared to be trapped behind wildlife exclusion fencing along all boundaries of the 70-hectare property on Patterson Road. They said up to 200 animals could not escape back to neighbouring Greens Bush wildlife reserve “even if they wanted to”. The group said neighbouring landholders had told them a kangaroo cull took place on the property last year and “their concern is another cull is imminent”. Neighbours had said no other…

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THE chance sighting of a missing item poster near the beach at Canadian Bay set off a train of events that ended with a happy ending for a Mount Eliza couple. On the poster were photographs of a lost wedding band that had slipped off its owner’s finger while he was out paddling in front of the boat ramp, Wednesday 8 September. The man, who is not being named as he is suffering serious health issues, was distraught at the loss and his wife set about printing the posters in the hope the ring would be found. Enter Mount Eliza…

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