Wednesday, 30 August 2023

Mildura electorate health services

Jade BENHAM (Mildura) (17:31): Today I grieve for the state of the public health system in Sunraysia. The continued ignorance – and we are being ignored at every turn by the Andrews Labor government – towards the health needs of the Sunraysia community is nothing short of disgraceful. The people of the north-west have waited patiently for the release of the master plan for the Mildura Base Public Hospital, which they remind us at every turn was handed back to the public. And yet the Minister for Health came to Sunraysia last week to declare that ‘No, public’, which we have handed the hospital back to ‘We’re actually not going to release a master plan to you’. Outrageous! ‘You will not be privy to the plan that we have for your public health care and for your hospital.’ In my mind, there are possibly three key reasons for keeping it hidden from the public. But first, I am going to give this all a bit of context. The previous Minister for Health Martin Foley stated in a media release in May last year that:

To support the future health needs of the local community, the Government is progressing a Master Plan which is on track to be completed in mid-2022. The Master Plan is assessing the feasibility of expanding the existing hospital while comparing this with developing a second hospital campus elsewhere.

Excuse after excuse for the delay was offered up after this media release in May 2022, first by the former health minister Mr Foley and now by the current health minister. That hospital takes in a tri-state area because that is where we are as far as isolation goes. We serve people from as far up as Broken Hill and over into South Australia. It is a tri-state catchment we are operating on. During the election campaign the people of Mildura watched on as Labor announced funding for other regional hospitals all over the state but nothing for us. However, the Nationals and the Liberals committed $750 million for a new hospital – $750 million.

Let me be very clear here. The thing that Mildura Base Public Hospital does have is incredible staff. It is absolutely not an attack on them, although some people might like to tell you otherwise. The system is broken, and this is a grievance of the people. The staff care for their community whilst working in a facility that no longer meets the healthcare needs of the region. Patient wait times in the emergency department have exceeded 12, 15 or 18 hours, and this is unacceptable. It is unacceptable not just because they are waiting there for up to a day to be seen but because we have no choice. Because of our isolation, we cannot just pop to another emergency department. One does not exist.

We talk about priority primary care clinics. The one that they have opened in Mildura and bang on about is open one day a week for a few hours, serviced by a GP that services everything else. Without him, we would truly be lost. The Andrews Labor government clearly has no plans and has committed to nothing, in fact quite the contrary. The current hospital, as I said, no longer meets the health needs of the Sunraysia community. We need a new world-class hospital, a teaching hospital, as well as a state-of-the-art GP clinic that we could also teach in through the Monash School of Rural Health so that our incredible rural generalist Dr Travis Taggert can train new GPs as he has been talking about and wishing for on the ground in Mildura. What a way to grow your own workforce and keep GPs in the regions.

It is quite literally now a matter of life and death. I am getting calls every single day to my office from people that want to raise this issue, but they do not want to complain, they do not want to raise a formal complaint, because they do not want it to reflect badly on the staff because the staff are doing an incredible job in a system and a facility that is broken. Now, I was admittedly concerned when it was announced that it would be handed back to public management. I thought, ‘Yeah, okay, this will make a good media release, maybe it will be a good thing’, but I was concerned that as soon as this happened and the media was done, that it would result in the hospital being underfunded and ignored by Labor. That is exactly what has happened. These concerns have become a reality, with the refusal of the Andrews Labor government to progress and release the master plan and even acknowledge the obvious need for a new hospital.

Even worse, the 2022 financial statement for the Mildura Base Public Hospital for the year ended 30 June 2022 shows that the Andrews Labor government had failed to provide sufficient operating funding to cover the operating costs of the hospital – what a surprise that funds have been mismanaged. There is a pattern here. In the 2021–22 financial year the hospital recorded an operating loss of $2.337 million. The net financial result for the period saw the hospital record a net loss of $3.743 million. This is not the financial result a public hospital, a health service, would incur if the government provided sufficient and adequate recurrent funding, and the concerns that I held at the time about the change of management have become a reality. Labor talks a big game about their commitment to the Victorian health system, but the system is broken due to a systemic lack of investment by this government, and the Mildura Base Public Hospital is a prime example of this.

On 3 May this year I invited the Minister for Health to Mildura to release the master plan. Last week she came to Mildura but not to release the master plan.

Brad Rowswell: Did you catch up?

Jade BENHAM: No, we did not catch up – I was not invited. It was quite the contrary.

Tim Bull: Does it exist?

Jade BENHAM: We will get to that. It was to make an announcement not for a new hospital but for $14 million for medical records upgrades in Mildura, Swan Hill and Kerang. Medical records are important, no doubt, but this is a distraction tactic. We will sprinkle some funding over it to make it look like we care, but it is a token gesture, along with a couple of other health services. Medical records are important, but it is infuriating when we have been screaming out for a master plan, 30 new emergency department beds and a new hospital. We need it – honestly. I mean, what are we to be taken for? Just because we live where the sun shines, does not mean that we are silly. We can see exactly what is going on here, and it needs to be called out.

Further to that – and here is the kicker – she stated to the press in a press conference that the master plan would not be released to the public. The minister stated that the master plan would not be released to the public, that it is an internal working document and would not be released – outrageous. Here is another kicker, especially after she said multiple times in this place, along with the Premier, that the master plan would be released soon. We have been led down the garden path it seems.

Let us refresh some memories. On 31 August 2022 the Minister for Health said:

The 2021–22 budget did include that $2.1 million to develop a master plan for the Mildura Base Public Hospital. I want the member –

the previous member –

to know that that work is very well underway and is very close to being finalised. I look forward to having more to say … in relation to this once the work is finalised.

Twelve months later, a backflip. Who would have ever thunk it? The Premier said on 22 June 2022:

… there is a master plan process that is underway, and the government, in its decisions for the future, will be well informed by that master plan process.

He also said in response to a supplementary question from the previous member:

We will be informed by the master plan, and of course we will work with you to lobby the new federal government to make sure that they can be a partner in any improvements for health, particularly in rural and regional Victoria.

Premier, you can work with me. I will lobby whoever we need to lobby to get a new hospital and to get the health care that people that are putting food on your plate deserve. I have brought it up, and I asked for the release of this master plan on 3 and 18 May. Also in the other place it was brought up on 5 April, 8 February and also 22 May this year, yet all we are getting is radio silence. They spend all this time looking at handing back a hospital from third-party management, but they are never going to get anywhere looking in the rear-view mirror. We need to be looking forward now. You might well say that the current Mildura hospital was built for profits. We have heard this over and over. But when it was run by a third party, they did not have to beg for critically needed new ED beds, and documents like this were delivered at AGMs when they were required.

I will say it again: the staff in this hospital do a remarkable job, an absolutely remarkable job. There are not enough of them, but they are doing a remarkable job – sometimes having to work in hallways, seeing patients in waiting rooms or having to send people home when they know they should be in a hospital bed but they simply physically do not have the room. They all deserve a medal. They really do. Everyone that contacts my office, like I said, does not actually want to raise a complaint, because they do not want it to reflect badly on those amazing staff. They are absolutely brilliant. So do not let those on the side tell you that we go around attacking healthcare workers. That is absolutely not the case. We are attacking the system, the underfunded system, and the hospitals and the healthcare system in regional and rural Victoria that are getting ignored, especially one like this, which takes in three states. It has a catchment of three states and over 100,000 people are served by this hospital. What they are doing in this hospital and within this system is truly remarkable.

In my mind there are a few possibilities as to why the master plan will now not be released despite it being stated that it would be released.

A member: What are they?

Jade BENHAM: One, it does not exist. Maybe the master plan just does not exist.

Jess Wilson: That’d be embarrassing.

Jade BENHAM: Well, there are a couple of others yet. Let us not jump to conclusions too quickly. Two, the master plan shows that they plan to cut services to perhaps maternity, which has already been done, or other critical services. It could. We do not know until it has been released. There could be many theories. Until it is in front of me in black and white and in front of the public that it is being returned to, we will not know. The third one, number 3, is a real concern for everyone in our region – that the master plan shows an amalgamation with Bendigo regional health, bringing it in from a subregional health hospital to a regional hospital, which then has the potential also to take in the incredible multipurpose services that have amazing funding models and serve the communities of Robinvale and the Mallee track in the best way possible because of that funding model for the MPSes. We want to protect that with everything we have because, if they are absorbed, we risk seeing what has happened with Grampians Health occur in my region, and I will not stand for it. I will go down kicking and screaming to protect those MPSes. So which is it? Is it number 1; does it actually exist? We do not know. Does it show a cut to services? We do not know. Or is it written on the letterhead that shows ‘Bendigo regional health’?

A member: Show us the plan.

Jade BENHAM: Show us the plan. That is all. It is a public hospital, and I grieve for the people of the Greater Sunraysia region, the people that it serves in New South Wales and the people that it serves in South Australia because if we continue down this road without a plan that is available to the public so that they can at least have their say on this, which their taxes are paying for, then of course we are on a road to nowhere.

It is an absolute disgrace that after being invited to Mildura to release the master plan, the minister would actually do the opposite and come to Mildura to announce that there will be no master plan released to the public. It is absolutely outrageous. They need to release where the master plan is up to right now – whether it does exist, whether it does not exist. Accountability is all we want, and it appears as though the Premier and the health minister could not even spell it.