Tuesday, 5 April 2022

Health services

Ms KEALY (Lowan) (14:16): My question is to the Minister for Health. Last sitting week the opposition asked about James, from Melbourne’s south-eastern suburbs, who lay for days awaiting an emergency appendectomy, a potentially life-threatening situation. Over the weekend reports revealed that seven-year-old Man-Ha from Melbourne’s west was sent home despite having a burst appendix. How has our health system deteriorated under the minister’s watch to such an extent that a seven-year-old child is sent home despite facing such a life-threatening situation as this?

Mr FOLEY (Albert Park—Minister for Health, Minister for Ambulance Services, Minister for Equality) (14:17): Can I thank the member for her question. Again I will have to take as read and as fact the honourable member’s assertions that a particular case that I am personally not familiar with was dealt with in the manner that she reflects. What I would say in the context of how our public health system in particular has dealt with a one-in-100-year pandemic that has had an enormous impact on it and its professionals and all those Victorians who look to its service is that that impact has been recognised by this government. It is a bit of a pity that those opposite do not take that same comment to their mates in Canberra, who have just cut $1.49 billion out of this Victorian system that this government is having to deal with.

Ms Staley: On a point of order, Speaker, the minister has begun to debate the question, and I would ask you to bring him back to answering it.

The SPEAKER: I do not uphold the point of order. The question itself was a very broad one and the minister is being relevant to it.

Mr FOLEY: Thank you, Speaker. In regard to any decision that is made by our clinical leads, particularly at our busy public hospitals, we back them in because they know that this is a government that will work with them to fix the problems that we are facing. They know that because we have got a track record of doing that. We fixed the mess that we inherited from those opposite when they last were on this side of the chamber when it came to health. The honourable member for Altona led a partnership model in working with our ambulances, with our clinicians, with our hospitals, with our nurses. This is a government that, having—I am relatively confident—got through the worst of this global pandemic, is now facing a rebuild exercise of a similar dimension if not even more challenging, and the investment that we announced just a few days ago, the investment that we made of $1.4 billion in further investment in February, addresses precisely the kind of—

Ms Kealy: On a point of order, Speaker, on relevance, this question was specific to a seven-year-old girl who needed emergency surgery for peritonitis. The minister is referring to other matters—federal matters. He is also speaking to elective surgery. Having your burst appendix removed is not elective. I ask you to bring the minister back to this story of this seven-year-old girl.

The SPEAKER: Order! I do not uphold the point of order. The question at the end of the preamble was ‘How has our health system deteriorated?’, which is a fairly broad question. The minister is being relevant to it.

Mr FOLEY: Thank you, Speaker. Clinical decisions and clinical priorities are made by clinicians, and we back them in. We do not undermine what their professional bodies talk about. We do not undermine public health advice. We do not attack nurses, the AMA or paramedics. We work in partnership with the private sector to address and build and rebuild the capacity so as to make sure that all Victorians get access to the services that when it comes to their health system they rightly deserve and which this side of the house has a track record of delivering and will deliver again as we build our way out of this one-in-100-year global pandemic.

Ms KEALY (Lowan) (14:21): Responding to Man-Ha’s situation, the AMA’s Dr Sarah Whitelaw said:

This is not the result of the pandemic. The pandemic … has revealed the stress that was there already.

Man-Ha’s father said that someone has to take responsibility. As the person in charge of Victoria’s health system, does the Minister for Health take responsibility for repeated failures like Man-Ha experienced in the Victorian health system?

Mr FOLEY (Albert Park—Minister for Health, Minister for Ambulance Services, Minister for Equality) (14:22): Dr Whitelaw is an outstanding clinician at the Royal Melbourne Hospital and is a very serious person when it comes to how world-class care is delivered in world-class circumstances. Her advice and her direction in how clinical decisions are made should be at all times respected when it comes to her patients. In regard to a particular patient that I am unfamiliar with, but which I did understand from the honourable member’s substantive question related to, as I recall, Western Health—I stand to be corrected, but that was my understanding from the honourable member’s initial question—we know that you work in partnership, whether it be with the AMA, the Australian Nursing & Midwifery Federation, the paramedics, the allied health professionals or others. We know that the government takes responsibility for acknowledging that there is an impact on our health system like never before— (Time expired)