A plan to rename a hospital in Australia after Queen Elizabeth II to honour the late monarch’s “unwavering commitment to healthcare and our community” has sparked powerful backlash from indigenous leaders in the state of Victoria.
Representatives of democratically elected First Nations have signed a petition opposing the move by Victoria’s premier Dan Andrews to rename Maroondah Hospital.
The name means “throwing leaves” in the Woiwurrung Aboriginal language.
The petition has collected more than 53,000 signatures and is an attempt to tell the premier to not give up the Aboriginal name for the east Melbourne facility.
It asked the administration to retain the original Woiwurrung name and has been delivered to Mr Andrews by the co-chair of the First People’s Assembly, Marcus Stewart.
Mr Stewart has called the Victorian premier’s suggestion an act of colonisation and disheartening.
“To erase the name of the subjugated, in favour of the name of the oppressor, is an act of colonisation all over again,” he told The Age.
The government had misread the room, he said, and could instead rename another hospital instead of erasing Aboriginal place names.
“There’s nothing about us, without us,” he said on Thursday. Mr Stewart added that the facility is one of the only hospitals that is named in the Aboriginal language.
The lawmaker, however, has persisted in his commitment to renaming the hospital, saying people in Melbourne’s east deserve something special.
“We’re building a brand-new hospital, and it needs a brand-new name. And that’s what we’re giving them,” he said.
Announcing the move last month, Mr Andrews had called the Queen “a long standing supporter of Victoria’s healthcare system”.
“As the patron of the Royal Melbourne and the Royal Children’s hospitals, she demonstrated her devotion to patients and their care whenever she visited their bedsides,” he had said.
Mr Andrews said that a re-elected Labour government will invest between $850-$1,050m in the new hospital, which will include a new emergency department, operating theatres, day procedure facilities and specialist care spaces.
The move to change the hospital name has also been condemned by the Victorian Aboriginal Community Controlled Health Organisation, the Closing the Gap Partnership Forum, Victorian Aboriginal Legal Service and the progressive Greens political party.
Greens leader Samantha Ratnam asked the government to reverse the “disrespectful” name on Thursday.
