Wednesday, 11 May 2022

Portland District Health

Ms BRITNELL (South-West Coast) (14:32): My question is to the Minister for Health. Can the minister confirm that all elective surgery has been cancelled at Portland hospital indefinitely and there are now no anaesthetists on site to conduct emergency resuscitations?

Mr FOLEY (Albert Park—Minister for Health, Minister for Ambulance Services, Minister for Equality) (14:33): The Portland District Health service is an outstanding health service that is strongly supported by its community and by this government. It has had some deep, systematic issues in its governance and in its leadership, which the board has recognised, and the board has taken steps for that to be addressed. This government has backed the Portland District Health service every step of the way in that process, but in many ways the further you get from the Melbourne area, the more acute the issue becomes, not just in Victoria but indeed right across the country—our regional and rural health services are facing a significant workforce challenge, particularly when it comes to specialist clinical, surgery and other areas.

Portland District Health continues to deliver all the services that are clinically safe and available for it to do. In regard to the specific issues that the honourable member raises and that have been raised in this place on a number of occasions, this is a government that is backing the Portland District Health service to recruit further specialists to improve the generalist health model supported in the review that was done into Portland District Health and to deliver the kind of services that the honourable member refers to and that the people of the Portland district and surrounding communities rightly look to their health service to provide in partnership with its surrounding health services along the same models that so many other health services across regional Victoria deliver.

So in regard to the hospital in the honourable member’s community, I can give her and through her the people of Portland and surrounding communities the undertaking that this is a government that will back the board of Portland district hospital every step of the way in building its support and its services in the kinds of areas—elective surgery, required surgery, maternity, urgent care, the whole kit and caboodle—that a subregional health service delivers and is expected to deliver. And it will be supported by this government, particularly through the record investment that was just announced last week, as the Portland District Health service responds to its particular expressions of the one-in-100-year crisis that the global pandemic has shifted across the board. This is a government that will work with Portland, and indeed every regional and rural health service, to deliver the care that our record $12 billion recovery program will achieve for Portland.

Ms BRITNELL (South-West Coast) (14:36): You cannot have a baby in Portland hospital. You now cannot have surgery in Portland hospital. Why has the minister allowed this crisis to reach a level where country Victorians are not currently getting the health care they deserve?

Mr FOLEY (Albert Park—Minister for Health, Minister for Ambulance Services, Minister for Equality) (14:36): Can I thank the member for South-West Coast for her question. I have some difficulty in logically inferring from her question the assertion she has ended up with because those opposite, when it comes to regional and rural health, have form. Those opposite privatised and sat around the table and continued to privatise the very services—

Members interjecting.

Mr FOLEY: including the person about to speak—sat around and privatised Mildura Health.

Mr Walsh: On a point of order, I would ask you to bring the minister back to answering the question rather than attacking the opposition please, Speaker.

The SPEAKER: Order! The minister to come back to answering the question.

Mr FOLEY: In regard to the assertion that services are not available in our regional communities, that is simply not correct. This is a government that has invested more as we come out of this global pandemic than any other government around the country, let alone in Victoria’s history, in the recovery particularly of our regional and rural health services. Our regional and rural health services have a particular challenge when it comes to workforce. We will work with those communities and fix that challenge.