Tuesday, 2 August 2022

Pandemic Declaration Accountability and Oversight Committee

Review of pandemic orders

Ms CROZIER (Southern Metropolitan) (19:25): I want to make some comments regarding the Review of the Pandemic (Visitors to Hospitals and Care Facilities) Orders report conducted by the Pandemic Declaration Accountability and Oversight Committee, which I have been a member of. In this morning’s proceedings around that I made the comment that there were findings throughout our inquiry that the orders were confusing for so many Victorians but also those working in the very critical areas of health, whether that be aged care or the acute health system. It was very confusing for those facilities, especially around visitors to hospitals and care facilities. What we know is the real devastation for people who were unable to see their loved ones as they were dying, not being able to spend time with them, and the impact for those families is still very significant, especially around people who were at the end of their life. It was very distressing that not everybody could spend the period of time that they could have or should have, considering what was happening in Victoria.

We also found that not only were the orders very confusing, but there were other profound impacts. I am talking about the mental health impacts. I spoke briefly on the elective surgery impacts this morning, which again I have just checked. The government still continues to refuse to release the number of Victorians on the elective surgery waitlist. It is around 90 000. Well, what is it? Why won’t the government release this data? Why are they just keeping this stuff hidden from Victorians? It is a damn disgrace.

Again, what we found here were some of the very profound impacts to children especially, but also the alarming numbers of women fatally overdosing from alcohol. The biggest number on record occurred during the lockdown in 2020, and the highest number of overdoses where alcohol was the sole contributing drug occurred in women through lockdown. I heard this from pharmacy friends of mine who said they had never given out so many antidepressants to young women. Well, these are the impacts for so many Victorians and, of course, for schoolchildren—kids who had to do the remote learning. The lockdown impacts to young children of playgrounds being locked up—who will ever forget those images of playgrounds being taped up and the terrible, terrible burden that put on families who could not allow their toddlers to even play, to even have some time outside?

Of course the public housing towers were locked down, and we know that the Ombudsman found breaches in human rights. Also the border closures—really terrible decisions, I believe, to lock citizens out of their own state. The unbelievable heartache and the distress for those people who were fully vaccinated, double vaccinated, and could not even come back to Victoria to go to a medical appointment or be with a loved one who was dying—those mental health impacts and that trauma to those family members who have experienced these types of issues are still there.

We heard from Shadow Pandemic Victoria, who spoke of the huge group of parents and mothers—20 000 I think they have in their group—talking about the many, many issues for teenagers and kids that they were dealing with. These mental health impacts are going to be with people for a very long time. That is why we need a royal commission. That is why we need to see the government’s response, because the failures in this COVID response are many, and we know that through the disgraceful display by the Premier at the Coate inquiry—‘I can’t remember, I can’t recall’.

But I have to say that while we are waiting for a royal commission into this COVID response, while the pandemic declaration remains in place the chief health officer needs to come before that committee. He needs to come before the committee on a monthly basis. We have not seen the CHO since January. We have a pandemic declaration in place and the CHO is nowhere to be seen. What is more, the Labor Party members do not even turn up to committee meetings. I could say so much more, and I will next week.