Thursday, 12 September 2024

Questions without notice and ministers statements

Pharmacotherapy services

Georgie CROZIER (Southern Metropolitan) (12:03): (669) My question is to the Minister for Mental Health. Minister, tomorrow the state’s largest pharmacotherapy prescribing clinic, located in Frankston, will close. There are no alternative GP prescribers of opioid replacement therapies in the Frankston region aside from Frankston Hospital. Can the minister guarantee Peninsula Health has capacity for all 1100 patients who are reliant on methadone and other medications to manage their addictions and who will have no access to a local prescriber from tomorrow?

Ingrid STITT (Western Metropolitan – Minister for Mental Health, Minister for Ageing, Minister for Multicultural Affairs) (12:04): I thank Ms Crozier for her question, and of course this has been the subject of a number of questions from Mr Limbrick, who has a keen interest in making sure that the community in Frankston get the health services and the AOD services that they deserve. When it comes to pharmacotherapy, our government are certainly making sure that we are strengthening the system right across the state, but we have been working closely with the Frankston healthcare community to make sure that if indeed this GP service does close down on Friday – and I only say that because there have been a few stop-starts to this, but I do understand that it is due to close this week – as a result of knowing that this situation was coming, we have been working very closely with Peninsula Health. Of course I think it is important to remember that pharmacotherapy and the funding of GP-led pharmacotherapy treatment is a matter for the Commonwealth. Albeit that is the case, the Victorian government has stepped in because we understand that there is a need and that there are a large number of people who rely on pharmacotherapy in the Frankston area. We have invested in additional services being available through Peninsula Health through the Commonwealth’s local primary health network as well.

There will be a public pharmacotherapy clinic in Frankston. This new service commenced in March. It is already supporting quite a number of existing patients from the Frankston clinic who consent to being treated by this new clinic, and they have got the capacity to support patients displaced by the closure of the Frankston Healthcare Medical Centre. I am very happy to advise the house that from 12 August the new pharmacotherapy clinic has been operating from a new permanent home across the road from Peninsula Health’s Frankston campus. We have been very mindful of the need to make sure that people who rely on pharmacotherapy as part of their AOD treatment services have the support they need in the Frankston area.

Georgie CROZIER (Southern Metropolitan) (12:06): I note the minister could not guarantee that Peninsula Health has capacity for those 1100 patients, or clients. How many people reliant on methadone and other prescribed medications in the Frankston area will be forced to travel long distances outside the Frankston LGA so that they can continue treatment for their addictions?

Ingrid STITT (Western Metropolitan – Minister for Mental Health, Minister for Ageing, Minister for Multicultural Affairs) (12:07): I thank Ms Crozier for that supplementary question. You are presenting a hypothetical which I have already explained is highly unlikely to occur because of the fact that we have been working closely with Peninsula Health to make sure that public pharmacotherapy services are available.