Women’s health
Sonja TERPSTRA (North-Eastern Metropolitan) (09:56): In the 2023–24 state budget the Victorian government invested $153 million to reform women’s health care. That is why it was a pleasure to visit Box Hill Hospital last week with the Minister for Health Mary-Anne Thomas, and it was great to hear about how Eastern Health is improving access to women’s health and reproductive services in the North-Eastern Metropolitan Region. Locally this means that funding has supported the commencement and recommencement of the following services: the surgical termination of pregnancy, STOP, service, Eastern Health’s surgical termination service; the combined endometriosis and bowel involvement surgery service; the paediatric and adolescent gynaecology service; and the pregnancy elevated BMI antenatal risk reduction and lifestyle, PEARL, antenatal clinic. This will mean that women in the North-Eastern Metropolitan Region and the eastern catchment more broadly will now be able to access surgical termination services. I am really proud to work for a government that makes sure that women can get access to health care when they need it.