Wednesday, 13 August 2025

Patient transport

Tim McCURDY (Ovens Valley) (19:03): (1253) My adjournment is to the Minister for Health, and the action that I seek is that the minister show some heart and reinstate the Victorian patient transport assistance scheme subsidy for a young girl in Yarrawonga. For various reasons I need to keep this young girl’s name anonymous, but I will forward her details to the minister’s office. I want to say that her treatment is completely unfair. At the age of five she was diagnosed with a brain tumour, and she has had ongoing treatment at both Albury cancer centre and Melbourne. Her mum is a single mum juggling two other children and the financial pressures of life. This young girl has been having weekly chemotherapy, and until now there have been no issues on VPTAS reimbursement. The chemotherapy has now been increased to two to three days per week for another 12 months, at 13 ‍years of age.

Somebody from the Department of Health team has now emailed the family to say the distance from her house to the Albury cancer centre is 97.7 kilometres, not the 100 kilometres that is the threshold for VPTAS, and it will no longer be reimbursed, having been reimbursed for the last eight years. If this anonymous person from the department bothered to drive the roads in north-east Victoria, they would see the Murray Valley Highway around Rutherglen has been closed for maintenance more often than it has been open. Therefore the fastest route to Albury cancer centre is via the New South Wales side rather than the Victorian side, which is 118 kilometres. For eight years this family has been reimbursed for travel. Now that Victoria has been driven to the brink of financial obscurity, we find families like this are being asked to fund their own travel. A single mum with three children in a cost-of-living crisis is now told to fund two to three days per week out of the family budget because the most direct route is not the fastest route due to road maintenance. I ask the minister to reconsider the VPTAS application and support this family as they have been supported for the last eight years. The Yarrawonga community will be at boiling point when this news spreads.