The latest auditor's report has revealed that our area health service ended the financial year with a $65 million deficit.

It was unable to meet tens of millions of dollars in accounts and spent a pathetic - almost negligible - amount on maintenance, not surprising given the compressor ordeal at Nowra.

Meantime, across the state waiting lists have increased, complaints rose and there was no abatement in the pressure on emergency departments.

In short, the Government is worlds away from meeting the recommendations of the Garling report.

And the only thing, we would contend, propping up our hospitals and allied services is those dedicated medicos, nurses and staff who do an extraordinary job under enormous pressure.

Herein lies the biggest challenge for new Premier Kristina Keneally: tackling in a root and branch manner major reform of a health system that truly is in crisis. We do not envy her mission impossible, but it is the job to which she was delivered.

As much as the state can do better in providing basic services in the public system, however, it would seem our greatest hope for improved services in the Illawarra lies with private investment and new thinking.

The recent application to establish a private hospital in Wollongong has the potential to provide new services, such as those for heart patients.

And we would hope this initiative, if successful, would be an incentive for other private operators and specialists to move in, thereby relieving the pressure on Wollongong Hospital and giving health consumers local options.

So appalling is the existing situation, that communities must be bold and innovative in establishing new solutions.

And another thing...

One less person involved in the illicit drug trade is on our streets today after a Wollongong court jailed Christos Agoris of Koonawarra for 10 years for his part in a $3 million operation.

Police did a first class job in smashing a drug network that would have pumped even more ecstasy onto our streets.

The people who run these labs might think of themselves as some sort of glamorous Underbelly-style gangsters.

But they are just greedy and morally bankrupt scum who will discover, like Agoris, that every action has a consequence.