Thursday, 6 March 2025

Patient transport

Tim BULL (Gippsland East) (17:35): (1059) Thank you, Speaker and Assistant Speaker. My matter tonight is for the Minister for Health, and the action that I seek is a review of the changes to non-emergency patient transport, which are denying patients in genuine need of pre- and post-medical treatment transport. Now, I acknowledge that there was a need to crack down on misuse under this program, but the changes that have been made are genuinely leaving patients who require support without it. The government will quite rightly say that those decisions are matters for the clinics and the specialists, and that is true, but it is clear that there are now a number that are too scared to approve travel, because if it is left unapproved, they are then left with the bill. They clearly need a little bit more comfort that essential trips will be covered.

One example that we have had is patients – multiple examples of patients – who are having to travel to Melbourne from East Gippsland for critical eye treatments to see specialists that often involve injections and impair eyesight. They are then not able to get a lift home because their travel is not being approved. They cannot travel on public transport either. They are the very people who should be approved for non-emergency patient transport. Some have even cancelled their eye appointments because they could not be guaranteed the journey back home after that treatment. When you need 12-week appointments for your injections, it can be the difference longer term between maintaining and losing sight. Postoperative patients have also faced a similar situation. One heart surgery patient was discharged from Monash and put on the train, which they found very deeply distressing and brought that into my office. So my request of the minister is to reconsider some of the criteria here to give the clinics a little bit of comfort that if they genuinely book for those in need, they will not be left with the bill, and that will provide some comfort to those in my electorate – and I am sure many other electorates around the state – that those patients can get the transport they need to get to critical appointments.