Thursday, 16 September 2021

COVID-19

Ms KEALY (Lowan) (14:41): My question is to the Minister for Health. With rising COVID numbers and more hospitals being exposed to COVID, as well as the furloughing of staff, are there enough ICU-trained nurses and ICU specialists to manage Victoria’s growing COVID demand?

Mr FOLEY (Albert Park—Minister for Health, Minister for Ambulance Services, Minister for Equality) (14:41): Can I thank the honourable member for her question. I am sure I join with her and others to use this as an opportunity to thank all those frontline healthcare professionals, particularly our ICU nurses, who do not grow on trees, who are highly trained and highly specialised, and have amongst the most difficult job of any of us in the state, let alone in our healthcare system.

In regard to the whole issue of workforce in this pandemic, our workforce in these areas—not just in ICUs but in hospitals and in healthcare settings more generally—has had an enormous 20 months. And in regard to the scalability processes that we have indicated in this place for some time now of ICU and, more broadly, ward capacity and indeed treatment in the community capacity for COVID-positive patients, the advice I have is that we have a more than adequate workforce to deal with the demands that we have now. We have in place processes to make sure that we continue to work with not just our ICU nurses but all our clinicians, all our supports and all our technicians to make sure that everybody in that process of a COVID-positive pathway—those who being treated at home, in the community, in the wards or in ICUs—is being provided the expert clinical care that they need to recover.

The truth of the matter is that this COVID-19 variant is really nasty, travels faster and knocks people over in terms of infections quicker and makes them more ill than they would have been with the original forms of this virus. The mechanism through which we can make sure that those nurses, clinicians and others in ICUs and across the COVID-positive pathway delivery get the support they need is obviously to provide them with support, equipment, infrastructure and assistance. But even more important is the issue of keeping those numbers down and to keep those people out of that pathway of care.

The most important thing we can do there is to follow the chief health officer’s orders to make sure that we are all vaccinated and that we follow the social-distancing arrangements. It would be irresponsible if, for instance, you were to call for the national plan not to be followed or indeed for the public health orders around lockdown to be abolished. That is the issue that will place those jobs of ICU nurses and others in really, really difficult positions. I look forward to continuing to support our hardworking clinicians, but particularly our hardworking nurses, in this battle against COVID.

Ms KEALY (Lowan) (14:44): The government still has not delivered over 3000 of its promised 4000 ICU beds. Noting the crisis in ICU, when do you intend to deliver the rest?

Mr FOLEY (Albert Park—Minister for Health, Minister for Ambulance Services, Minister for Equality) (14:44): I understand that the opposition have some challenges in appreciating what has now been a consistent theme in my answers when asked various questions on this theme over recent times. The Victorian government’s position is that we have the scaling up of ICU and indeed more broadly ward beds and, in an even broader sense, support in the community based on the clinical advice as to when the numbers and expected delays from infections into hospitalisations occur. We are convinced that our plans to deliver that scalability, starting with the issues around—

Ms Kealy: On a point of order, Speaker, on relevance, the government and the minister promised 4000 new beds. Over 3000 have not been delivered. Where are they?

The SPEAKER: Order! That is not a point of order.

Mr FOLEY: For the honourable member’s information, there is a little bit of difference between ventilators—4000 that were purchased by the government, in the media release from April 2020 that the honourable member was referring to—versus 4000 beds. (Time expired)