Tuesday, 1 April 2025

Murray Plains electorate

Peter WALSH (Murray Plains) (15:04): (1078) My question is for the Minister for Health and concerns the Victorian patient transport assistance scheme. Will the minister advise me when patients will start being reimbursed their costs within her department’s own six- to eight-week promised timeline? VPTAS was set up to assist people, but like most things in the Allan government, it failed to do so in a timely manner. People, many of them pensioners, are shelling out their own money on the promise they will be reimbursed and months later are still chasing their money. One regional support service, which often pays costs up-front for financially strapped patients, is now owed almost $300,000 dating back to October. VPTAS reimburses regional Victorians for accommodation and travel expenses if they go more than 100 kilometres one way for specialist medical care, but this government is refusing to fund that money in a timely manner, and that is unacceptable and unconscionable.