Tuesday, 7 February 2023

 Sam GROTH (Nepean) (16:02): Health care on the southern Mornington Peninsula is in crisis. Despite a rise in emergency room admissions of between 6.5 and 9.8 per cent for the December–January period compared to last year, there has been no commitment from the government to address the dated infrastructure or inadequate facilities at Rosebud Hospital. The issues include operating theatres closed, holes cut in doorways to fit hospital beds, no lifting tracks to ensure safe patient movement, poor ventilation and the morgue being located next to the kitchen. Add to this the lack of maternity services and the statewide ambulance response issues.

In 2022 the coalition made an election commitment of $340 million to finally see Rosebud get the hospital rebuild it desperately needs, only to be met with silence from those on the other side. So dire is the funding support for Rosebud Hospital that the emergency department has now for seven years been forced to run a fundraising drive hoping to raise $117,700 to fund its own new fleet of emergency department trolleys. The staff, nurses, doctors and volunteers at Rosebud Hospital do an incredible job, but they deserve the best possible working conditions to be able to deliver the best possible care. Where else in so-called metropolitan Melbourne are residents required to travel 45 minutes for public healthcare services, time which in some cases is a matter of life and death. I am committed to continuing the fight for the rebuild of Rosebud Hospital so that we have world-leading facilities on the Mornington Peninsula, ensuring locals can access maternity, emergency and other lifesaving services on their doorstep.