Tuesday, 15 October 2024

Health services

Sarah MANSFIELD (Western Victoria) (18:45): (1175) My adjournment is for the Minister for Health, and the action I am seeking is to significantly expand public outpatient specialist clinics across Victoria. Cost-of-living pressures are putting financial stress on many Victorian families. Right now people are having to choose between putting a roof over their heads or food on the table or seeing a doctor, and no-one should have to make those sorts of choices. In a country that claims to provide universal health care access everyone should be able to access the care that they need when and where they need it, but currently they cannot. Out-of-pocket costs for all types of health care have been rising for decades. While there has been plenty of focus on the cost of seeing a GP, what is no less of a problem is the cost of seeing other specialists like cardiologists, surgeons, psychiatrists and paediatricians. Fees being charged by private specialists for a consultation or an in-office procedure have been steadily growing and are frequently hundreds of dollars in excess of the Medicare rebate. These appointments are not covered by private health insurance either if you can afford that.

There are of course specialist outpatient services available at public hospitals, commonly known as outpatients, but the types of services offered by each hospital and the availability of appointments vary enormously between health services in Victoria. There are major tertiary hospitals in this state that do not offer some of the most basic specialties like paediatrics or dermatology. More commonly, if a specialty is offered it is only for a very narrow range of eligibility criteria, and wait times can be astronomical. A classic illustration is ear, nose and throat outpatient assessments for children. Waiting lists are not uncommonly over three years for things like an assessment for grommets or a tonsillectomy. Chronically blocked ears can limit language and hearing development, while sleep apnoea from chronically enlarged tonsils can have profound impacts on children’s behaviour.

Accessing treatment for this can be literally life changing, yet I saw countless families who were unable to access timely care or had to make financially crushing decisions to pull together many thousands of dollars to pay for private care. The same goes with paediatric care, especially for kids who require a developmental assessment because there is a concern about their learning or behaviour, or for a young person with severe acne that requires treatment that only a dermatologist is legally allowed to prescribe. I could go on. Illness does not discriminate based on income or where you live, so why should access to the specialist who can provide the care that you need be based on these things? Outpatient specialists are entirely within the state government’s remit, and they can and should be doing better.