Questions without notice and ministers statements
Health services
Mr GUY (Bulleen—Leader of the Opposition) (14:01): My question is to the Minister for Health. James from Melbourne’s south went to his GP on Tuesday at 1.30 pm, who diagnosed appendicitis. He was sent immediately to Sandringham Hospital for emergency surgery. After waiting overnight there, there was still no theatre available, so he was transferred to the Alfred at 10.00 am yesterday, where there was also no theatre available. He is still waiting right now for emergency surgery and risks a burst appendix. He faces the very real risk of death, but his surgeons cannot tell him when or where he will be operated on. Minister, after eight years in government is this the best the government can offer Victorians in need of emergency surgery?
Mr FOLEY (Albert Park—Minister for Health, Minister for Ambulance Services, Minister for Equality) (14:02): Can I thank the Leader of the Opposition for his question. What we know is that this is a government that has resourced our public health system like no other. It has put in record amounts of support, particularly at that rough end of high demand in the surgical and emergency areas.
In regard to the different campuses of the Alfred Health network, I do not have the specifics as to the circumstances of the individual case that the honourable Leader of the Opposition refers to. But what I do know is that whether it is the Sandringham campus, the Caulfield campus or the Prahran campus, Alfred Health deliver the world’s best quality services to tens of thousands—hundreds of thousands—of Victorians in their catchment area, no doubt also including the person that the honourable Leader of the Opposition refers to. They do so in the context of a global pandemic that has seen demand on them rise to record levels and at the moment sees some 1600 people being furloughed across our public health system, including at Alfred Health. This has increased over 50 per cent in the past two weeks as we have seen the omicron BA subvariant increase in its infectivity right across our community. Our public hospitals are not immune from that. In fact our public hospitals are particularly at risk from that because they see this in its first instance; they see demand increase right across our public health system once again in response to that increasing number. At the same time, to then have their own workforce increasingly sidelined as a result of the omicron variant growing again in our community has raised this. But at the same time, whether it be Monash Health, the Alfred or indeed Peninsula Health, they are working together collectively to see how these kinds of operational demands can flow across the system in a timely way.
Should the opposition leader share the particular circumstances with me, I will be more than happy to have my department follow up, but I am prepared to make a bet that Alfred Health are already working around the clock to make sure that that particular case is being fitted in within the clinical demands and constraints that the global pandemic has put on them and is putting on them right now as we speak. On behalf of all honourable members I thank the Alfred Health team for their world-class leadership.
Mr GUY (Bulleen—Leader of the Opposition) (14:05): I do appreciate the minister’s answer, but none of what he says is helping James, whose health is deteriorating because he has been fasting since 11.00 pm on Tuesday, waiting for emergency surgery. Minister, when no-one can identify a time or even a day for James to have emergency surgery, as James asks, how is it acceptable in Victoria today that he still does not know when he will get the surgery he needs to save his life?
Mr FOLEY (Albert Park—Minister for Health, Minister for Ambulance Services, Minister for Equality) (14:06): Again can I thank the honourable Leader of the Opposition for his supplementary question. Indeed the answer is largely within the confines of the answer to his first question, whether it is the person that the honourable Leader of the Opposition refers to or any of the other record numbers of Victorians who have come forward to rely on the support of our world-class public health system every day in the context of a global pandemic, where we are seeing record demand day in, day out, particularly as we have very few, if any, restrictions whatsoever on the normal operation of our community. That is playing through as we see now the BA.2 subvariant in its slow but steady increase across our community. We are seeing, as I point out, 1595 staff furloughed— (Time expired)