Tuesday, 30 August 2022

 Ms LOVELL (Northern Victoria) (13:00): It gives me great pleasure to rise and speak on how a Matt Guy led Liberal government will fix Labor’s growing health crisis in my electorate of Northern Victoria. Last Tuesday I welcomed Matt to Shepparton to announce that, if elected, we will immediately allocate $100 million for the development of a new life-saving integrated cancer centre and a new clinical health school at Goulburn Valley Health. The new cancer centre will be four times the size of the current facility at GV Health and will include treatments that are currently not provided at GV Health, including radiotherapy. This new and larger centre will mean that residents will no longer be forced to travel long distances to receive vital cancer treatment. The clinical health school will train up to 300 health workers locally every year to fill the growing need for health professionals at GV Health and other services. Currently GV Health has 80 doctor, 130 nursing and 40 allied health professional positions vacant. These vacancies are placing enormous pressure on other staff and impacting on GV Health’s ability to deliver the health services needed in our community.

An elected Liberal government will also invest $750 million to build a brand new hospital in Mildura and will contribute $300 million towards a new hospital for the Albury-Wodonga border community. These commitments form part of the Liberals’ plan to rebuild Victoria’s health system, broken by the years of neglect and underinvestment by the Andrews Labor government, and I look forward to more health announcements in my electorate in the lead-up to the election. Our dedicated healthcare workers deserve far better than what is being delivered by Daniel Andrews and Labor, and only a Liberal government will fix Victoria’s healthcare crisis.