Wednesday, 19 February 2025

Health services

Georgie CROZIER (Southern Metropolitan) (11:50): I move:

That this house:

(1) condemns the Allan Labor government for failing to manage Victoria’s health system, including the amalgamation of health services across Victoria, which will lead to a loss of frontline jobs, services and local community voice, and centralised decision-making;

(2) notes:

(a) the lack of community consultation by the Allan Labor government on their plans to amalgamate health services and create local health service networks, which has led to ongoing uncertainty for local communities, staff and hospital management;

(b) that no additional funding has been provided to establish the networks;

(3) further notes:

(a) the closure of critical healthcare services, as a result of budget cuts, leaving vulnerable Victorians without the support and management they deserve and need;

(b) that hospitals across the state are running massive deficits in excess of $1 billion;

(c) that hospitals have failed to maintain benchmark cash-on-hand holdings and are struggling to pay staff salaries and suppliers on time; and

(4) further notes that under the leadership of the Honourable Jacinta Allan MP, the Department of Health is in disarray and the Labor government’s financial mismanagement and record debt is starving funding from Victorian hospitals leading to poorer outcomes for Victorian patients.

I am pleased to rise on this important motion that we will be starting on before lunch and then will continue with after the lunch break no doubt. It is an important motion. I say that because it is in relation to the many issues that are plaguing Victoria’s health system. It is really that last line in my motion that I am really concerned about, around poorer outcomes for Victorian patients, because as a government when you have the responsibility to provide services to your community you are meant to deliver services that are meeting the needs of the community. What we have seen under Labor over 10 years is a decline in services, and their latest plans to amalgamate health services, with the network that they are establishing and the mergers of hospitals and radiology and pathology and IT systems and all of these aspects, are going to lead to a massive decline in service delivery. It is not only me saying this; it is others saying this, and I will come to that. But the concerns around the lack of detail are very concerning.

The government came out over the Christmas break and announced their plans to establish the health service networks, but there really has been a lack of clarity around what this means and no detail about how it will actually be undertaken. I did have a briefing with the Alfred CEO and the new Frankston CEO and I asked some of these questions to them. ‘You’re coming out and talking about this, and you’ve reached out to speak to me about the merger of Bayside Health, which includes hospitals in Gippsland.’ It is bizarre how these networks are even set up and how they have put hospitals in areas that do not have anything really in common. Kooweerup and other hospitals in Gippsland coming into Bayside Health makes no sense, but when I did ask the CEOs, ‘What are you doing? Are you having a centralised roster system?’ they could not answer that. They could not answer whether that was going to occur. They could not answer what happens when patients are transferred from Frankston to the Alfred and then discharged. ‘With the IT system what would that look like?’ ‘No, the discharge is still done with paper.’ So there is no detail around how the infrastructure around these very important elements is going to be set up.

We know there is no detail because the government actually cannot deliver what they are promising. When they say no frontline services are being cut, I would dispute that. Security guards I think play an important role in frontline protection for staff and patients, and they are being cut. Security guards are being cut in hospitals right across the state. We know that we have had an increase in occupational violence, especially in emergency departments – the code blacks, the code greys; the issues that arise are very, very significant. These are cuts that are impacting the delivery of frontline services.

The Grampians Health amalgamation that has occurred, which my colleague Emma Kealy has spoken out on a number of times, is a failure; it is actually a failure. It is one of the worst performing health services in the state. They had people that were delivering a service to their local area in Horsham working in the laundry and linen department. There will be 20 jobs lost there – 20 jobs lost in Horsham as a result of the amalgamation of these services. Disgracefully, these people were travelling 2000 kilometres a week to do their job in Ballarat because the service had been closed down in Horsham, and this heartless, cruel government on Valentine’s Day told them their jobs were gone. So they have got no jobs – gone. These people depend on their jobs in these areas, and this is what we have been concerned about – the loss of jobs that will have an impact on the amenity of towns and regional centres and their ability to be a sustainable entity.

We have seen it, Ms Bath, with the shutdown in Gippsland of the forestry industry and the impact on those local jobs – the diminishment. This is something that Labor just do not understand. They actually do not care about regional Victoria – it is so obvious, but it is so heartbreaking.

As somebody who grew up in regional Victoria, 4½ hours from Melbourne, I understand the importance of primary health care. I understand the importance of having access to services that can assist you in a time of need. No-one in country Victoria expects large hospitals to be operating and that therefore they will be treated immediately. They understand they have to travel to Melbourne to get proper treatment and services and care and management in some instances, and that is why we do have world-class health services like Peter MacCallum and our trauma centres at the Alfred and the like. Everybody understands that, but they know you cannot get basic services like maternity services and you cannot get support to travel to get your dialysis – life-saving treatments, because if you do not have dialysis you die – and this cruel government has cut the funding for these support services. This is what I am talking about when I am talking about the delivery of care. It is not just a hospital and what is going on, it is actually what happens inside the hospital, like the dialysis treatment or like maternity services.

I have asked the minister around VPTAS, the Victorian patient transport assistance scheme. In April last year she promised me it was back on track and that people were getting their payments done when they needed to have that support if they were travelling from regional Victoria to metropolitan Melbourne for treatment. For cancer treatments they have to stay overnight. It is a huge cost that they have got to find, and that program is there to support regional Victorians that do not have the luxury that metropolitan residents have, who can access health services far more easily. That has not been fixed. I was told by one of my colleagues today that their constituents are still waiting up to 20 weeks for payments. Nothing has been fixed. This government promises the world and delivers very little. Their words mean nothing; their words are actually cheap, because – (Time expired)

Business interrupted pursuant to sessional orders.