Wednesday, 19 February 2025

TrialHub

Jade BENHAM (Mildura) (19:08): (1015) My adjournment matter this evening is for the Minister for Health, and the action I seek is to reassure the people of Mildura the TrialHub will continue past June 2025. The funding for the existing program is due to finish in June of this year, and we are urgently seeking a commitment from the state government that it will continue, because it has been a vital part of cancer treatment in our part of the world. Given the restrictions that are now upon schemes like the Victorian patient transport assistance scheme and the government’s resistance to paying for taxis even when we do not have public transport out to our airport and complications like this and the length of time it takes to get reimbursed, something like TrialHub at the Mildura Base Public Hospital is so vitally important. People in Mildura are writing to me to ask that I push for reassurance, because there are people in the middle of clinical trials at the moment through TrialHub at the hospital that are not sure and they do not need that added stress of not knowing whether their clinical trial is going to continue in Mildura, a place that is their home, or they will have to travel to the Alfred. I know firsthand how important this is. My mother-in-law has had to relocate to Melbourne so that she can seek treatment for cancer at the Alfred hospital.

There are many like Lisa. Lisa has blood cancer, and thanks to a clinical trial treatment, she is able to live a relatively normal life. She has had two years of travelling back and forth to Melbourne, but with TrialHub’s support, she is able to live a relatively normal life. TrialHub has been heavily supported by Mildura Base Public Hospital to deliver this. There has been workforce upskilling, which is invaluable to our community, communications support and implementing the new model at Mildura Base Public Hospital, so they can deliver these clinical trials alongside a metro hospital, the Alfred, which reduces the need for community members to travel. Let us be honest, if you cannot afford the $1100 on average that it costs to fly, then you are sitting on a bus and a train for up to 13 hours, and anyone that is seriously ill does not want to be doing that. I mean, no-one wants to be doing that, much less when you are uncomfortable because you are so ill.

So we are asking that the Minister for Health reassure those that are in the middle of clinical trials right now or that are potentially looking at becoming eligible for a clinical trial, like the T cell trial that my mother-in-law is currently on, that it can continue at TrialHub at Mildura Base Public Hospital.