Wednesday, 9 February 2022

Mildura Base Public Hospital

Ms CUPPER (Mildura) (14:27): My question is to the Minister for Health. The master planning process for a new Mildura Base Public Hospital is advancing well, but we are determined to avoid the mistakes of the past, where a disastrous private contract delivered a short-sighted facility that was unable to adapt to evolving community needs. This is why CEO Terry Welch and local university partners are advocating for an academic health precinct to be integrated within a new hospital to help grow and retain our healthcare workforce. The academic health precinct would provide high-quality hospital-based learning experiences, facilitate collaboration on medical research and create academic pathways for Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander Australians into the health disciplines. This is a model that has been successfully implemented in other regional and remote cities like Shepparton and Broken Hill. Does the minister support the concept of an academic health precinct at Mildura Base Public Hospital?

Mr FOLEY (Albert Park—Minister for Health, Minister for Ambulance Services, Minister for Equality) (14:28): Can I thank the independent member for Mildura for her question and particularly for her very strong advocacy over a period of time to return from Ramsay Health the Mildura Base Hospital, which has always belonged to the people of Mildura, back to the people of Mildura, a decision this government was proud to take—when previous governments, having had the opportunity to, squibbed it.

In regard to the issue that the honourable member has touched on, she is quite right. The progress of the $3 million invested for the detailed service plan for Mildura and the northern Mallee is well underway. I have been lucky enough to be briefed on a number of occasions about how well it is going, and I look forward to the opportunity of perhaps briefing the honourable member, and through her her community, in the near future about the next steps.

A part of that briefing, as the honourable member quite rightly touched on, has been that these infrastructure investments are more than just bricks and mortar. You have to staff these important facilities with the professionals you need, and you have to train them. You have to do that in a way that builds the system, and whether it be at the Monash heart hospital or at the Footscray $1.5 billion investment or whether it be at Ballarat or Bendigo or Geelong, all of these significant investments have substantial partnerships with learning organisations and universities. In this regard I have been lucky enough to be part of conversations with both La Trobe University and Monash University and with the Mildura hospital leadership around what this very concept looks like in Mildura and the northern Mallee—indeed into New South Wales—and what that investment might look like.

I look forward to that next step of the process, taking into account precisely the kinds of issues that the honourable member has raised because you cannot deliver, whether it is in the regions or in the inner city or anywhere in between, a world-class healthcare system in world-class buildings and facilities without world-class staff. That needs a partnership between all levels of community and all levels of—be it state, federal or in this case local—government and the wider regions so in those kinds of specialist areas the honourable member talks about she can have confidence that her community is right up there at the top of the list in the thinking about what specialist areas in regional, rural and remote health and Indigenous health look like. I look forward to working with the honourable member on this exciting project.

Ms CUPPER (Mildura) (14:31): Mildura Base Public Hospital should be the placement of choice for prospective graduates interested in rural and remote health, a place where students have a rewarding, challenging but well-supported learning experience and choose to stay. As it is the remit of the federal government to support the tertiary education sector, will the minister write to the federal government to seek its co-investment in the construction of an academic health precinct at the new Mildura Base Public Hospital?

Mr FOLEY (Albert Park—Minister for Health, Minister for Ambulance Services, Minister for Equality) (14:31): I most certainly will. I most certainly will because this will only work if all levels of government step up and play their part. Particularly when it comes to post-school education, this current federal government has some ground to make up. Whether it has been the increase in HECS fees, whether it has been the slashing of university investments, particularly in these areas of health, increasing costs and reducing opportunities is not the way to go to make the kind of vision that the honourable member for Mildura outlines a reality.

I will most certainly raise this with I think it is Minister Robert, who is the acting Minister for Education and Youth at the moment, but I will also take the opportunity to raise this with the Minister for Regional Health—I think it is the honourable Dr Gillespie—and take that in a way to achieve the very vision that the honourable member for Mildura outlines.