Thursday, 8 February 2024

Regional health services

Tim BULL (Gippsland East) (17:14): (513) My adjournment tonight is for the Minister for Health, who I see is at the table. Minister, we need your help. The action I seek is for the minister to fix the medical imaging disaster we have at Bairnsdale Regional Health Service and other regional hospitals. Medical imaging departments in country hospitals are experiencing significant delays. This is frustrating GPs, impacting the health of patients and delaying critical treatments, and I know it is the same at the Central Gippsland health service for the member for Gippsland South here.

One patient of several that have contacted my office since Christmas, Gordon Holland, said he had a seven-week wait for scan results required after his surgery, only to be told that due to the age of the results he had to go back for another scan, with no guarantee this would not happen again. So he turned up to the doctor with his scans after he had received them – too old to be used. Just think about that: by the time the scan was processed it was out of date for his injury. Another patient, Vicki, a cancer patient, had an oncologist appointment 20 days after her scan to discuss the course of action for her treatment. However, the oncologist, 20 days later when she turned up at the appointment, had not received the scans, so the appointment for her treatment could not proceed. Can you imagine how that poor woman was feeling about that? Another gentleman travelled to Melbourne for a specialist appointment, which would mean an overnight stay, but on arrival, 15 days after the scan was done, the specialist did not have the results. So the appointment could not proceed – it was cancelled – further delaying his treatment.

Minister, this is not unique to East Gippsland. We know that the third-party provider I-Med is suffering from staff shortages. That has been relayed to our health services. We constantly come into this place and hear what a great job is going on with our health system here in Victoria, but that is not what we are hearing on the ground with issues like this. This issue severely impacts the health outcomes of country people, and it could potentially cost lives when we are talking about oncology patients. You would no doubt be aware of this matter, Minister, but I would really seek your intervention to know what is going to go on to fix this problem for our country patients.