Thursday, 28 October 2021

 Ms KEALY (Lowan) (14:08): My question is to the Minister for Health. Jane of western Victoria was born blind. She has a degenerative muscle-destroying disease that causes immense pain. She was placed on a category 3 surgery waiting list in late 2019 at the Eye and Ear Hospital and throughout COVID has had her surgery delayed numerous times. Last week she was told it was cancelled. Why has the minister not intervened to get more elective surgery underway and help thousands of Victorians currently suffering on long elective surgery waiting lists?

 Mr FOLEY (Albert Park—Minister for Health, Minister for Ambulance Services, Minister for Equality) (14:09): Can I thank the member for Lowan for her question. I would of course not refer to any specific case—it would not be appropriate to do so—but if the honourable member chooses to forward me particular details based on clinical advice and based on all the normal processes, I would undertake for my department to have a look at that matter.

But on the broader issue that the member raises, what we have around Australia at the moment, indeed around the globe, is a global pandemic. As a result of the global pandemic, we are seeing extraordinary demands across all of our public health services right across the country, even, I have to point out, in Western Australia, where with zero cases elective surgery has been postponed in that particular state—because all of our services are under extraordinary pressure.

Here in Victoria, where we have several hundred cases of a highly infectious, deadly virus in our health system; we are having to put in place extraordinary measures to deal with that. One of those extraordinary measures, dating from March 2020, is the national partnership with the private hospital system as to how to manage demand that was expected and has, sadly, come to pass across several states and territories—how to manage precisely those extra demands in a safe way. One of those arrangements, as envisaged in that partnership, goes to how we partner with the private sector to manage the delivery of both public and private sector non-urgent surgery. There is no such thing, really, as non-urgent surgery, as the honourable member suggested in her question. If you are waiting, you are waiting for urgent attention. What the arrangements that we have in place are always based on is clinical advice that those people most at risk of needing the most urgent treatment the fastest get the treatment that they deserve. In that regard, that has sadly meant that there has been—as it was in New South Wales, as it was in the ACT and as it is in Victoria—a reframing of—

Mr Andrews interjected.

Mr FOLEY: indeed in other jurisdictions around the world—how clinical advice says, treat those most in need of urgent care first. As a result of that, what has happened is some elective surgeries, sadly an increasing amount, have had to be rescheduled to meet precisely those criteria. I look forward to the day when, based on I hope an emerging trend of the last three days of a declining overall infection rate and a declining number of people in hospital, the very issues the honourable talked about— (Time expired)

 Ms KEALY (Lowan) (14:12): Yesterday the minister boasted that elective surgery had continued throughout COVID in large numbers. Despite the minister’s assurances, Victoria has had a more than 50 per cent reduction in elective surgery. When will Victoria return to full elective surgery capacity?

 Mr FOLEY (Albert Park—Minister for Health, Minister for Ambulance Services, Minister for Equality) (14:12): Can I thank the honourable member for her supplementary question. In regard to the question at the end, the very last phrases that I uttered in my substantive answer went precisely to that. To refresh the honourable member’s attention, that said: when the clinical advice says it is safe to do so based on all the material that is before us indeed dealing with getting through this global pandemic, that is when we will do so. This government will do so because it invests in public health. This government will do so because it invests in our public health system to address precisely these issues. This is a government that pre COVID took down those waiting lists to record low levels, having inherited record high levels. This government, dealing with a one-in-100-year global pandemic, dealing with these issues, is the government the Victorian community can trust to know that it will see this issue through and address those matters. (Time expired)