Thursday, 18 April 2024

 Georgie CROZIER (Southern Metropolitan) (17:10): (825) My matter this evening is for the attention of the Minister for Health. A recent report by the Royal Flying Doctor Service found that, compared with people in metropolitan areas, rural and remote residents are nearly three times more likely to be hospitalised and 2.7 times more likely to die from avoidable causes. Delays in testing, diagnosis and treatment lead to people becoming sicker and needing more urgent care. Local services are essential to supporting the health and wellbeing of regional communities. A regional community, such as where we are today in lovely Echuca, needs a strong health service. It is these health services that provide support not only to the local community and to surrounding communities but to the clinicians and the senior administrators that provide leadership roles within the local communities and are very much part of the fabric of the community, and these hospitals are replicated across the state.

On ABC radio on 4 April the AMA Victorian president Dr Jill Tomlinson said she was ‘worried about what is coming in the budget for Victorian health care’ as ‘we don’t have the opportunities to cut’ and ‘cutting staff, no matter where you cut them from, does impact frontline services’. This is in the context of course of the amalgamations that are going to occur under the Victorian Labor government, and there are many CEOs and many people across Victoria who are very concerned about the government’s plans. Dr Tomlinson at the time called on the government to commit to an urgent meeting to discuss these concerns. The action I seek is for the minister to advise if she has met with the AMA president and what assurances she will give that health services will not be cut, especially in regional Victoria. Regional communities across Victoria deserve better services, not cuts and not forced mergers that will lead to service closures, job losses and the loss of local community voices.