Tuesday, 30 May 2023

Presto electorate LGBTIQA+ health services

Nathan LAMBERT (Preston) (11:08): I rise to update the house on some important work being done in the Preston electorate through the transgender and gender-diverse people in community health initiative. This initiative is funded by the Victorian Labor government, and it has three key components. Firstly, it provides specialist health services directly to trans and gender-diverse Victorians through two clinics – one operated by Ballarat Community Health and one operated in Reservoir by our local Your Community Health. Secondly, it runs a statewide training program through Thorne Harbour Health that increases the capability of GPs and other healthcare professionals across the state to provide safe and inclusive gender-affirmative care. And finally, it provides a peer navigation service that helps clients get the care they need and ensures that the program as a whole is led by and co-designed with our trans and gender-diverse community.

The Minister for Health and I recently joined the team in Reservoir to hear directly about their work, which has included thousands of appointments across primary care, counselling and peer navigation and hundreds of specialist appointments through their partners at Austin Health. I would like to thank Kent Burgess, Keira Leike and Professor Jeffrey Zajac for their leadership of the program. I understand that the minister knows Professor Zajac well from up her way. I would like to thank the peer navigators and note that the team do their great work in a very challenging environment in which demand continues to exceed supply and in which historic discrimination and current discrimination continue to affect health outcomes for trans and gender-diverse Victorians.