Thursday, 7 April 2022

Ministers statements: health services

Mr ANDREWS (Mulgrave—Premier) (14:09): I am pleased today to rise to extend gratitude—at least on behalf of everybody who is a member of the government—to each and every member of our health workforce: our nurses, our ambulance paramedics, our doctors, our allied health professionals and everyone who is part of the team. Health care is delivered by people. Budgets are very important of course, and equipment is important, but nothing is more important than our staff. Everyone from car park attendants, cooks, cleaners, ward clerks, orderlies as well as all of our clinical team—they all do amazing work. The last two years have been two years like no other. And despite everything that has been thrown at them, the great challenges they have had to face, the complexity and just the sheer workload, they have done all of us proud. We have been proud to stand with them, not critical of them, not playing politics with them, not criticising them every single day, but instead working with them, supporting them with the resources they need, the support they need and the acknowledgement that they are absolutely entitled to. That gratitude is real.

But it is not just words, it is also things like the hospital surge support allowance paid by our government to those who provided clinical care to those who needed COVID care, things like record investments in PPE as well as other pandemic-related equipment and things like billions of dollars in additional funding provided at a moment’s notice to buttress the system to support our teams to deal with unprecedented demand—all the BAU, all the usual pressure that is there every day, plus what the pandemic has thrown at our teams of health professionals. When it comes to this government, we will continue to invest in our health system. We will continue to back our health teams—all of them, every single one of them—not be critical of them, and we certainly will not be cutting the resources that are so important to their important work.