Tuesday, 8 February 2022

Elective surgery waiting lists

Mr SOUTHWICK (Caulfield) (14:16): My question is to the Minister for Health. There are more than 80 000 Victorians now on the public elective surgery waitlist. On top of this, can the minister advise just how many thousands of additional Victorians are still waiting for surgery at private hospitals?

Mr FOLEY (Albert Park—Minister for Health, Minister for Ambulance Services, Minister for Equality) (14:16): Can I thank the Deputy Leader of the Liberal Party for his question. Whilst we welcome the national partnership agreement that is in place with the public and private systems right across the country and we acknowledge that as a necessary measure in regard to how to get through this unprecedented level of demand, we have seen the public and private systems come together in an unprecedented manner. What we have seen, as the honourable member touched on, is non-category 1 elective surgery temporarily postponed. But with that measure now being eased as of yesterday, and I am confident of further measures in coming days to further—

Mr Southwick: On a point of order, Speaker, on the issue of relevance, I asked the minister for a number. Minister, what is that number?

Members interjecting.

The SPEAKER: Order! The minister is being relevant to the question.

Mr FOLEY: Thank you, Speaker. As I was indicating, there are now unprecedented levels of coordination, cooperation and investment by the public sector into the private hospital sector, and that has helped get us through this arrangement. I am very alert to the fact that there are in fact, as the honourable member points out, now more than 80 000 people on that public waiting list for category 2 and category 3 surgeries, and I look forward to measures to further address that and bring that down as quickly as possible, again in partnership with the private sector.

In regard to the specific numbers in the private sector, for arrangements that are in place between private surgeons, private practitioners and private hospitals, these are matters that are a direct relationship between those patients and those private sector operators. These are not matters that are on the public record. They are regularly commercial-in-confidence matters, and they are all the time private matters between those patients and those operators.

The SPEAKER: Order! Just before calling the Deputy Leader of the Liberal Party on a supplementary, the level of noise and shouting across the chamber has become excessive, so the warning to every member is if they shout across the chamber, they will be removed without further warning.

Mr SOUTHWICK (Caulfield) (14:19): Why didn’t the minister take the advice of the perioperative committee, made up of surgeons, anaesthetists and other health experts, who told the minister that the private system had capacity to continue operating and warned him not to suspend elective surgery?

Mr FOLEY (Albert Park—Minister for Health, Minister for Ambulance Services, Minister for Equality) (14:20): We now operate under a set of legislative arrangements, and I thank the Legislative Council and the lower house for delivering us the most transparent, accountable and public system of not just the delivery of advice but how it is acted on, when it is acted on and why it is acted on. I would refer the honourable member to that advice, to my reasons that are set there on the public record for all to see.

But in regard to advice, particularly from the medical profession, let me just detail all of the various advice that I received on this particular matter. I received advice from those nurses on the front line, the thousands of nurses who are being redeployed to all sorts of surge arrangements— (Time expired)