Tuesday, 16 August 2022

GP respiratory clinics

Mr McGUIRE (Broadmeadows) (19:17): (6483) My adjournment request is to the Minister for Health. The action I seek is an update on the rollout of the landmark GP respiratory clinics program in the state district of Broadmeadows. The Victorian budget is investing more than $12 billion to make patients priority one after the global pandemic placed health systems under unprecedented pressure. The pandemic repair plan will deliver more staff and better hospitals, and I am delighted that Broadmeadows Hospital will become one of eight rapid-access hubs across the state, streamlining equipment and staff and increasing the number of surgeries that can be performed each day. This is vital and important.

The Andrews government will deliver $60 million for the new Broadmeadows Health Service and the centre of excellence, and this is the first stage of revitalising Kangan Institute’s campus in Broadmeadows, training local people for local jobs and, really significantly, making sure that we have nurses and allied health workers from the communities who are most vulnerable—so we get the daughters and the sons of the migrants and the refugees right through from Melbourne’s north and west. This is where we need it most. Go to the epicentre of the pandemic outbreaks and address the causes—the social determinants of life, not just health—and drive that home. That is what must be done now.

The Andrews government is giving Victorians more ways to get help when they need it most, delivering 26 new GP respiratory clinics right across the state. There are two in the state district of Broadmeadows. The investment is to see a total of 53 respiratory clinics across the state, including commonwealth-funded clinics. I want to make sure that this is brought home to where it is needed most. Here is how we can develop the Broadmeadows Hospital to what it should have been. The people of Broadmeadows raised more than $3 million in the 1970s. Think about that commitment from the poorest community to getting a hospital. What we have seen continually is the triumph of politics over rational decision-making as a former Liberal government gave money to the Essendon hospital within 15 minutes of the inner-city ring of major teaching hospitals. I did the story on this myself, the Yes Minister hospital. It opened with no patients and with plastic wrappers on all of the equipment. The money should have gone to Broadmeadows first, so it is time to go back into the heartlands, to deliver the services where they are needed most and to get the workforce for the future where they can take care of the vulnerable communities and families—the people who are the making of the Labor Party and the truest believers.