Will hospitals as we know them cease to exist in 50 years?
The Great Debate
Following the same tried and tested format of previous events, the best was saved to last at Showcase 2020 with The Great Debate closing out Day Two. Looking at the impact of technology and the huge costs associated with bricks-and-mortar hospitals, the 2020 debate examined whether hospitals as we know them would cease to exist in 50 years’ time.
The teams featured some old and new debaters including Carl de Wet, Chris May and Champika Pattulo (affirmative team), and Nikia Goldsmith, Rob Franz and Robyn Littlewood comprising the negative team.
With several humorous and personal digs between opponents, each team came up with interesting and thought-provoking ideas of what the future would hold. Including: personalised, technology-driven medicine embedded in our brain with a little chip, futuristic hospitals, and overall improvements to our wellbeing that would reduce hospital burden. But in the end, the winner (as determined by the audience poll and chair Prof Keith McNeil) was the Affirmative Team – that is, hospitals WILL cease to exist within 50 years!
