Wednesday, 30 October 2024

Regional health

Renee HEATH (Eastern Victoria) (18:47): (1239) My adjournment is for the Minister for Health, and it follows the tragic news that three infants died at the Latrobe Regional Hospital in recent weeks. This is heart-wrenching and difficult to comprehend, and I cannot imagine what the families of these children are experiencing right now. When preventable deaths and adverse outcomes occur in our hospital there should be thorough and independent investigations, publicly released findings and improvement to the systems to prevent reoccurrence. This is what transparency, accountability and care for citizens looks like, but not so with this government.

For many years systemic failures at Latrobe Regional Hospital have been exposed through tragic and preventable deaths, multiple investigations, whistleblower complaints and media reports. The government’s response, however, is one cover-up after another. Last year the health watchdog Safer Care Victoria investigated seven preventable deaths at the hospital, and we still have not seen the findings of that report. What we do know from documents obtained by the coalition under freedom of information is that when the Minister for Health was informed of these tragedies she failed to alert the community. What she did do was make a plan to defer any questions to the Secretary of the Department of Health if they came up in a parliamentary inquiry. How could the minister’s priority be public relations not system improvements when seven preventable deaths occurred at one hospital?

If this government put into health half the funding and focus it gives to construction projects, Victoria would have a health system that would be the envy of the world. For example, consider the $675 million the government promised to build 10 hospitals by 2024. We are now in 2024 and the government is well and truly failing to meet those goals, yet the government can find tens of billions of dollars for construction projects like the $216 billion SRL. Imagine how many world-class hospitals would be built, how many specialists, how many doctors, how many nurses and expert medical staff could be trained and employed with those funds. Imagine the difference this could make for everybody waiting for elective surgery. For 10 years this government has pursued the political and neglected the essential. It has filled the pockets of union bosses through overpriced construction projects and it has robbed Victorians of basic health care and services that are expected in a world-class jurisdiction. Minister, the action I seek is to commit to restoring public trust in the health system by allowing an independent review into regional hospitals that will properly identify and address the source of these fundamental – (Time expired)