THE health services plan for Cairns did not contain the "big thinking" needed to propel the hospital from its country town status into a major tertiary medical centre, community stakeholders say.

While welcoming recommendations to fix "gross" shortcomings such as lack of beds and inadequate cancer and cardiac services, Cairns Chamber of Commerce president Jeremy Blockey and James Cook University’s Faculty of Medicine head Prof Ian Wronski said the plan was reactive rather than forward-thinking.

Mr Blockey last night told The Weekend Post it seemed the State Government was paying "lip service" to the need to meet the health demands of a rapidly growing population while it "just tinkered around the edges" and played "musical beds" to create more room.

"It does not address whether we're going to be a tertiary hospital and that would seem to be a deficiency," said Mr Blockey, who heads a taskforce of business and medical leaders committed to pushing for a dramatically improved hospital.

"A large part of the plan is reactive to what our current gross deficiencies are that have evolved out of a lack of planning for this region… things they didn’t get right in the first instance.

"It would appear to be more of a damage control document than a fundamental shift towards getting tertiary level services."

Prof Wronski said it was depressing to see the report's authors were "on the same set of rails" as previous planners who had discounted Cairns as just a big country hospital.

"What a population the size of Cairns and its draining region needs is a university tertiary referral centre and the sooner this is grasped by planners the better."

He urged Cairns' civic leaders to come to grips with where they wanted to be in 2021 in regard to the range and depth of services, then take a stand on ensuring they were delivered.

"If you're going to create a future strategy by just doing bits of Bandaids, you’re going to create a future you don’t want," Prof Wronski said.

"One of the truisms of planning is that the worst strategic outcomes often result from a series of short-term, seemingly sensible but myopic decisions, one after the other. That’s the problem with this; there is no big thinking."

The full health services plan will be released for public comment on April 14. It will also form the basis of infrastructure requirements to be outlined in a Master Plan to be unveiled next month.

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