Health system
Mr GUY (Bulleen—Leader of the Opposition) (14:34): My question is to the Minister for Health. Can the minister confirm that under his management Victoria’s health system is now recording record low outcomes forecast for key emergency service performance measures, including just 66 per cent of patients being transferred from an ambulance to the emergency department within the target time frame of 40 minutes?
Mr FOLEY (Albert Park—Minister for Health, Minister for Ambulance Services, Minister for Equality) (14:35): Can I thank the Leader of the Opposition for his question. The information that he tangentially refers to is available on the public record in the budget papers. That is for projections, but it is also available in terms of performance measures to date, available every quarter, and was released a couple of weeks ago; that points to our health system being under pressure like it has never been before in its history. In the lived experience of everyone in this system it is facing pressures and demands, and those very performance measures and those very outcome measures that I have referred to show that they have been under demand pressures that no-one has seen. Ambulance Victoria has had its busiest quarter in its most recent reporting period in its history. That has flowed through to the demand pressures in our emergency departments, in our wards. At the same time as that we are also seeing record furlough numbers for staff across those systems, averaging at the moment at 1500 a day, having peaked at over 5000 in the last reporting period, which places even more pressure on those frontline healthcare workers, particularly our nurses.
Can I use this day, International Nurses Day, Florence Nightingale’s birthday, to reflect on the fact that our nurses and our healthcare professionals have under that pressure delivered a performance outcome that is deeply appreciated and remarkable. This is a government that will work with those workforces, particularly our nurses, by supporting them, rewarding them, recognising them and getting more of them. That is why our most recent $12 billion pandemic recovery package is designed to address precisely the improvement in performance outcomes that the honourable Leader of the Opposition points to, including the training and recruitment of 7000 clinical frontline workers, including 5000 further nurses—and in so doing making sure that we address precisely those outcome measures that the Leader of the Opposition points to.
But when you look at how those measures have moved over time, when this government was elected in late 2014 those performance measures were at that time the worst in the history of this state.
Mr Andrews: By choice.
Mr FOLEY: Some chose that outcome. This government got them to the best they had ever been in 2019, and it will again.
Mr GUY (Bulleen—Leader of the Opposition) (14:38): Once patients have been admitted to emergency departments, can the minister then explain why more than 40 per cent of Victorians—more than ever before—are facing a wait time of more than 4 hours?
Mr FOLEY (Albert Park—Minister for Health, Minister for Ambulance Services, Minister for Equality) (14:38): Can I thank the Leader of the Opposition for his supplementary question, and in reflecting on the substantive answer I will equally reflect in the supplementary answer the same basic premise: this is a country, this is a state, this is a globe that is coming out of the worst health crisis in a century. More than 6 million people officially, and likely double that, have died across the world. This is a country, this is a state that on excess death levels is at the bottom end of all international measures. That is a remarkable achievement.
Now as a result of the measures that have been put in place, we have seen performance measures in so many areas take a hit coming off the 2019 position of the best, and we will get back to those best figures— (Time expired)