Thursday, 17 August 2023

Ministers statements: rural and regional health services

Mary-Anne THOMAS (Macedon – Leader of the House, Minister for Health, Minister for Health Infrastructure, Minister for Medical Research) (14:27): I rise today to update the house on how the Andrews Labor government is continuing to deliver the health infrastructure that regional Victorians need and deserve. We have and will continue to deliver and build bigger and better hospitals and invest in the health and wellbeing of regional Victorians.

Let me take you through a list if I may: a landmark $558 million redevelopment of Albury Wodonga Health; a massive $595 million redevelopment of Ballarat Base Hospital; a $230 million investment into the Shepparton Hospital emergency department; a new ambulance station for Armstrong Creek; more beds at Wangaratta hospital; a huge $223 million expansion of the Latrobe Regional Hospital; funding for planning and early works for a new hospital for West Gippsland; a world-class cancer and wellness centre at Echuca; a bigger and better Wonthaggi Hospital; a state-of-the-art clinical services building at Warrnambool Base Hospital; more and better technology, including PET scanners, at Ballarat, Shepparton, Wangaratta and Warrnambool; and a world-leading co-designed mental health and wellbeing centre based in Geelong, the McKellar centre.

There is more. The Andrews Labor government will continue investing in rural and regional health through our dedicated $790 million Regional Health Infrastructure Fund. We have already delivered 630 projects right across rural and regional Victoria with this fund. We remember how those opposite, when they had the chance, went to war with our paramedics. They disrespected our nurses. They sold Mildura hospital off to the private sector, they shut down the Moe hospital and they bankrupted the Latrobe Regional Hospital, preparing to flog it off. Unlike those opposite, the Andrews Labor government will always invest in the people of rural and regional Victoria.