Wednesday, 29 November 2023

Motions

Parenting support services

Debate resumed on motion of Mary-Anne Thomas:

That this house recognises the government’s support for Victorians starting or growing their families, and in the critical early years of their children’s lives, by:

(1) delivering public IVF;

(2) establishing Victoria’s first public egg and sperm bank; and

(3) expanding Victoria’s early parenting centre network.

Gabrielle WILLIAMS (Dandenong – Minister for Government Services, Minister for Consumer Affairs, Minister for Public and Active Transport) (15:26): Acting Speaker Farnham, you are indeed doing a fine job, as the member for Lowan was at such great pains to express.

It is a pleasure to be able to speak in support of this motion here today, one that initially came up I think in October, the month that is also dedicated to acknowledging pregnancy loss. I know other speakers, in particular the member for Lowan, spoke to that, and I will make some remarks about that as well. This is an issue that is exceptionally close to my heart – making assisted reproductive treatments more accessible to Victorians and being able to celebrate our achievements in Victoria to that end. It is, I have got to say, probably one of the achievements of this government that I am most proud of, and I would like to talk a little bit about why.

Like many in this place, I had a very long journey with assisted reproductive treatments – about 5½ years. I have spoken about that at length in this place before. It is not a journey for the faint-hearted, I must say. It is – and I have described it this way before – a roller-coaster of hope and despair. For most who embark upon it, it does not necessarily bring the outcome that they hoped for. Not only is it a very emotionally draining process, it has been traditionally a very financially draining process as well. I lost count of the number of times I was sitting in the waiting room of Monash IVF, where I had my treatment, and watched couples quietly talk about how many more rounds they could afford, if any, or this being the last one, and saw the stress and anxiety that that reality caused, let alone the stress and anxiety of the process itself.

In 5½ years of IVF treatments I myself had three early pregnancy losses, and none of them were easy. But I know there are many in this place who have spoken about their experiences with the same, and some with far more advanced pregnancies or stillbirths. I want to single out the member for Laverton, who has been brave enough to share her story in this place many times before and I think has captured well in telling her story the experience of so many others – the life-changing nature of pregnancy loss, which we can sometimes be a little bit flippant about. I know myself it is something that has stayed with me but has also been a part of the journey that did eventually, in my case, lead to the birth of my son, and I will talk about that in a little bit.

I think it is worth noting that by the time somebody reaches that point where they are accessing assisted reproductive treatments, they have gone through a significant journey before then. Often for many it has been years of trying with no success. It can be years of trying with repeated losses, and it can be a lot of medical exploration to try and find out what the issue is. Everyone comes to IVF in particular with that being a part of their story, so it is not necessarily a particularly fun journey before they have even started that next phase, which brings with it a lot of other challenges.

In my case, I was diagnosed at 19 with polycystic ovary syndrome, so I knew to some extent that I may have issues with fertility. I was diagnosed at a time when there was not great interest among governments to invest in research into those sorts of diagnoses, which meant that the information provision around them was not great. Sometimes it could be a little bit alarmist. I am very proud to be able to say that in addition to what we delivered in public IVF, in public egg and sperm banks and in a range of other initiatives to help Victorians grow or start a family, we were also quite unusual as a government in investing, under then minister Jill Hennessy, in dedicated research and treatments for polycystic ovary syndrome. That was a huge deal at the time because it had been a largely misunderstood and a fairly silently endured condition, but it is one that is pretty common really and one that we really should understand.

But by the time that I had, on the back of that diagnosis, started accessing IVF treatment, all throughout that period, like it is for many, life had taken some twists and turns. I started the process with a partner; I ended up pursuing that process alone and making the decision to do it with donor sperm. Can I say to this house: donors are angels. They give the most remarkable gifts, and sadly we have too few of them. We need more men who are eligible to be open to donating sperm. I know the donation of eggs is also a really tough journey as well. So for those who might think about doing it, I would really urge them to. But I look at my little boy each and every day, and I do not know his donor, and yet I am so grateful to this man who is out there somewhere who had the foresight and the generosity to know that he could have a life-changing impact on someone else, and he has – he completely illuminated and elevated my being with the arrival of Ruairi last year. I think it is such an incredibly selfless thing for somebody to do. Thankfully here in Victoria when you access donor sperm you get a little bit of insight into your donor and why they decided to do this – so they can outline their own reasons for doing so. And overwhelmingly it is just altruism; it is wanting to give to someone else what you might already have yourself. It might be that people have experienced themselves the struggles of infertility or know somebody or have a loved one who has, and so they want to do their bit to give the joy of a family to those who might want to embark upon it.

First and foremost, let me say how much I love donors. I also know well the expense, the heartache and the frustrations with our assisted reproductive technology process and sector, and this government has done an enormous amount to try and overcome those. We have heard a lot over the years about poor practices in that sector, whether it be misleading information or whether it be questionable technologies and upselling of those technologies, let alone the issue of cost, which is itself such an enormous barrier – and that is something we have been able to address in our delivery of public IVF. But we also did really practical things like removing the need for police checks, which is something that I found really jarring when I went through the process. No-one else I knew who had a family without treatment had to get a police check before having children, so it seemed really discriminatory and it seemed like you were being treated with suspicion for the reason that you were just infertile. It was such an awful process to go through and something the clinicians seemed really uncomfortable with as well – so I am really glad that we have managed to make that change.

To have now a public sperm and egg bank – I have not got the latest figures on the donation rates, but I know that in the first couple of weeks that that was open there was a huge surge of donations into the public sperm and egg bank, which is incredible – and to do things that make these services more accessible to LGBTIQ+ Victorians, especially that change in the definition in the legislation from 10 women to 10 families, which might allow two people in a couple to mother a child by the same donor, is really, really important. All of that goes towards destigmatising these challenges, destigmatising the process, and that is really important if we are going to encourage accessibility.

Finally, in the short time I have left I want to offer a really big thankyou, because they say it takes a village to raise a child, and in my case it took a village to make one. I want to thank Professor Beverley Vollenhoven, who was my IVF clinician over many, many years. I think of her these days more as a friend. I want to thank Dr Ryan Hodges, who delivered my son and did so with great expertise, all of the midwives at the hospital at his delivery and also the embryologists at Monash IVF, who did their magic. I do not pretend to know what they do, but I know it is bloody amazing. I had the world’s best anaesthetist regularly, Dr David Lloyd. I want to thank finally my parents, whose love for my son just shows that these things cross generations.

Annabelle CLEELAND (Euroa) (15:36): That is a hard act to follow. It is with great privilege that I can finally rise today to speak on this motion brought forward by the Minister for Health. This is a motion that boasts about the government’s efforts to help Victorians starting or growing their family and in the critical early years of their children’s lives. I do often find myself talking about how disappointing it is to hear Labor members boast about a thriving health system while regional Victoria is still doing it so tough. As Shadow Parliamentary Secretary for Health, this is an issue that I have raised in Parliament on multiple occasions. Sadly, the efforts of this government have simply not been enough to provide good outcomes for regional Victorian families. Every Victorian family, irrespective of where they live, deserves quality health care. This is a fundamental right, and it should not be seen as a luxury.

Our hospitals are underfunded, ambulance response times are absolutely appalling and the barriers to accessing mental health services are pretty extreme. These barriers, including the high costs and long waitlists, are disproportionately impacting the most vulnerable in our communities. Our community-owned hospitals have begged the government for support yet continue to be ignored by minister after minister. Maternity care is one area that perhaps suffers the most in regional areas. The critical lack of resources in our regional communities is very genuinely putting lives at risk. While I have my own personal experience with this, I know I am not alone. Regional maternity care is personal for me; nearly five years ago my hospital lacked the resources to provide a safe birth for my son Arthur.

When I was elected to this role I vowed to leave a better legacy for young people and future generations of this electorate so that my children and yours can choose to live in regional communities without disadvantage. Speaking up on motions like this gives us the opportunity. After my own experience I became a community adviser working to improve health and safety outcomes for patients at a local hospital under extreme pressure from population growth and negligent government support. Devastatingly, I have had countless conversations with women just like me: women like Ellen from Nagambie and Meg from Heathcote. Meg had the first baby born at her local hospital in 30 years. She initially presented at a larger regional hospital in labour but was turned away because they were too busy. Meg and her baby almost died at her local hospital because they simply did not have the equipment needed to appropriately care for them. There are too many horror stories about unsafe births, unsuitable facilities and our local hospitals simply not being able to provide maternity services.

Every aspect of regional Victoria’s health system is deteriorating. Extensive ambulance wait times and out-of-control surgery waitlists are also of major concern. People are waiting for urgent medical attention with their lives hanging in the balance for upwards of 25 minutes before help arrives. I have heard stories from my constituents of the wait time reaching 2 hours, with absolutely devastating consequences. Under questioning from the Liberals and Nationals during Public Accounts and Estimates Committee hearings Department of Health officials confirmed nearly 1400 Victorians were removed from the elective surgery waitlist because they died during 2022–23, 20 Victorians died due to Ambulance Victoria’s failure across 24 months to June 2023 and nearly 19,000 taxi trips were used to transport Victorian patients because an ambulance was not available. On top of the blown-out ambulance wait times, our hospitals are gasping under the mounting strain. Our category 1 surgery waitlist, the most urgent there is, ballooned by 45 per cent in just three months. These are people’s families, loved ones and children suffering. We have seen cuts of up to 15 per cent to our grassroots and preventative services, including programs to address chronic illnesses and contributing factors such as smoking, vaping, unhealthy eating and physical inactivity. So rather than boasting, this government must step up and ensure that our communities and all the people in them are safe and make sure that our healthcare providers can operate effectively, because at the moment neither of those things are guaranteed.

While on this motion it is important to address this government’s claims that they are improving the critical early years of children’s lives. Our child care continues to be an issue plaguing our regional communities – and I sound like a broken record. A survey I recently organised really highlighted the dire state of child care in the region, with responses from all over the electorate sharing their concerns. The survey, which was launched in June and remains open to responses, asked members of the community several questions about their experience in accessing child care. Responses have been received from major towns across the electorate, including Avenel, Benalla, Broadford and Rushworth, and smaller towns throughout the region. There are far too many people in our community who are struggling to access childcare options. From both the survey and the conversations with my community it is clear there are so many parents wanting to get back into the workforce who cannot, because they are unable to get their kids into child care. This is a handbrake on our community and places a hurdle in front of young people who want to raise their families in the country.

Some of the other issues raised in the responses include multiyear waitlists, a lack of childcare providers in their town and families relocating to other areas to access better childcare options. Overwhelmingly, 100 per cent of respondents said they had been adversely impacted by access to child care in the region; 100 per cent of respondents shared that the limited childcare options had resulted in their being unable to get back to work or training. Of those that were looking, the responses highlighted a significant reliance on family and friends for child care, because there were no other options. More than 50 per cent relied on family and friends a great deal, and many did not have that option. We have already campaigned for Avenel to receive a new childcare centre, but the issue extends across the entire electorate and across the entire state for regional Victoria. Seymour is set to receive an early learning centre, but even this, it has been confirmed, will not be ready until after 2028. Our towns are not inaccessible backwaters, but they are placed at a disadvantage when child care is so rare.

I do want to thank the Minister for Health and the Attorney-General in the other place for their letter targeted towards me in a somewhat recent edition of the North Central Review newspaper. While speaking on issues brought directly to me by our local medical professionals may seem like a fear campaign to them and this government, it is what I like to call community advocacy, something foreign to many members of their party. As someone who has volunteered at local hospitals that suffered years of government neglect I invite them both to meet with our local healthcare providers, GPs and other medical professionals. They are the people who raised these concerns with me, and I suggest the minister learns how they really feel about this Labor government.

Of the 27 priority primary care centres you boast about, there are none in the Euroa electorate that I represent. Nineteen of these are in Labor electorates and just five in Nationals or Liberal seats. It is a disgrace. For people in my community, access to general practice is not being improved but rather going backwards under this government. GPs are already suffering with significant waitlists or are just flat out unable to accept new patients. To best serve our communities and provide the care our locals require, these GPs need more support, not less, and not a cash grab new tax. The flow-on effect has reached our urgent care facilities. Our GPs are already having an incredibly difficult time.

Your commitment to ensuring all Victorian communities have health care available close to home, especially in rural and remote locations, is just talk. Hospitals in my region are struggling and in need of assistance to remain open. As things stand we are seeing mergers between different hospitals just to keep the doors open. For the hospitals that are staying open the resources are limited. Benalla is without a dialysis facility despite frequent appeals to this government. Nexus in Kilmore is dependent on community funding. Maternity facilities in Heathcote are non-existent. The closest PET scan machine is in the next electorate. Euroa Health has partnered with cattle yards and farmers to raise funds for equipment. In Seymour a recent report into women’s disadvantages in our community highlights the town being on the periphery of crucial health services.

Sarah CONNOLLY (Laverton) (15:46): Well, I rise with a great deal of pleasure to talk about this motion before the house this afternoon. I absolutely love talking about IVF and sharing my experience and my road to parenthood. It is also a great opportunity to talk about the great investment. This government has truly gone above and beyond to ensure that more people here in Victoria, regardless of the size of their bank account and the money in their back pocket, can afford to undertake IVF and make their dream of having a baby come true.

Before I begin my contribution I do want to start by acknowledging that the road to parenthood is not always an easy one. I also want to acknowledge the thousands of people right across Victoria and indeed Australia currently undergoing IVF treatment. IVF and undergoing that type of assisted reproductive technology or that treatment – IVF, ICSI or whatever it is that you are doing – sucks. It is something that none of us ever want to have to do. It is something that none of us ever thought that we would have to do. But I do want to say to people undergoing that treatment: we see you, we support you and we are here to pick you up when you feel like it is all too much – and keep going, because at the end of it your dreams may in fact come true.

I also want to acknowledge all of the little miracles – and we have had little Ruairí talked about here earlier this afternoon – and the ones that have now grown up and are having families of their own that were conceived through IVF and fertility reproductive assistance, including little Felix. Felix is the first child to be born through our free public IVF program that we have rolled out here in Victoria. That is a remarkable achievement. Welcome to the world, little Felix. I also want to acknowledge my miracles: Vivienne, who was stillborn; Emily, who turned 13 last month and is really 13 going on 23; and my Leo, who is 10 and wants to be a pro soccer player and buy yours truly her own private island with a swimming pool – something that I am very much encouraging indeed.

My road to parenthood starts with love and it finishes with love, and in between that it has been a really bumpy ride, I think to say the least. It has been 13 years since I gave birth to my miracle baby, Emily. She is my rainbow baby. A rainbow baby is a baby that is born after you undergo the loss of another one. They call it a rainbow baby because it is your rainbow back to happiness. The years in the lead-up to Emily’s birth were really tough, and they could easily be described as traumatic. I would stand here and say they were probably the worst times of my life, the darkest days, and it is really sad to say that because that ride to parenthood or that road to parenthood started six months after I got married – two years after I met the man of my dreams.

The early years of our marriage, maybe our honeymoon years, were anything but that. Yes, the early years of my marriage were marred with really dark days of fear, of pain, of loss, of grief, of feeling that the world was against us – it was so unfair. I am able to smile standing here talking about that because we made it through those years together. We were changed, perhaps stronger and I would say a lot more resilient than some couples I come across. As I have already said, my story started with love. Perhaps it was the love of each other, Scott and me, that got us through it. For many, many couples their relationships do not survive after undergoing IVF and most certainly then the loss of a child on top of it. We learned that through going to counselling to try and help our marriage survive the loss of Viviene and the IVF cycles that we would have to undergo to get pregnant with Emily and Leo. Happy endings in this life are never guaranteed. That is certainly something that I know very well.

Today I want to take some time to talk about treasure island. You might ask, ‘What is treasure island? Is it a real place?’ Yes, it is. Many of us have to visit treasure island, and I am looking around the chamber and I can see members here who indeed I know have had to go to treasure island. All those years ago, when I underwent IVF, ‘treasure island’ is what the IVF sector or industry was referred to by GPs, really. The reason it was called treasure island is because there was so much money to be made by the incredible people that worked in it – the fertility specialists, the scientists, the nurses. As the member for Dandenong talked about, it takes an entire tribe and a community to actually get you pregnant. Those people are very special people, but they work on treasure island. If you are not someone or a couple that has a lot of money, visiting treasure island to make your dreams come true is very difficult, if not prohibitive.

There is nothing crueller in life, I can tell you, than to be told that you cannot have a child the way most of us do: in private. I call it the traditional way, but that is just me. There is nothing crueller than that and realising that the way in which you need to get pregnant is completely different, and in some respects it is quite public and it is quite invasive and it involves quite a few people in the room. What is even crueller is to find out that you cannot even undertake that journey and engage with the scientists and the fertility specialists that can get you pregnant in the first place, because you cannot afford it. That is something our Labor government has recognised, and it has changed. It is changing lives – it is actually bringing lives into the state, as I talked about previously with little Felix. I have to wonder if there are babies that have been born since Felix that we just have not heard the names of. But those parents will be forever grateful for having a government that understands that the size of your bank account, how much money you have got in your back pocket, should not determine whether or not you should be able to go through IVF and become a parent.

But like I said, our journey was over a decade ago: it was in Queensland, I was in my 20s and we were lucky enough to be able to undertake the first cycle, and I think back then it was about $10,000. I remember our parents saying that they would help fund it. We needed to do as many cycles as possible, because remember there is no guarantee with IVF. Some people in fact get to the end of the journey and they do not have a baby to hold in their arms. But that whole process of undergoing IVF is so stressful. It is full of anxiety, and that is because the stats and the numbers might not be working with you, you are worried about how many eggs you will get on pick-up and the number of eggs that will be fertilised and make it to the freezer. That is a very stressful process. It is also a really expensive process, and the more things you need to assist you to get pregnant, the more cost there is.

For us, treasure island and that experience, as horrendous as I found it – it was a time when you did not talk openly about IVF; it was something quite private – was such a stressful time in our lives. We were lucky enough to undergo three cycles and be pregnant three times, so our journey has not been marred with years and years and years of trauma attached to IVF. In fact I was just laughing about science the other day and explaining to my son Leo, who is 10, that he actually may be scientifically older than his sister Emily, who is 13, because he was a little embryo we left behind in the freezer after we put fresh ones back and they did not work and we went on to the third cycle. Isn’t it remarkable how amazing science really is? ‘Does that mean Emily now has to listen to me because I’m older and I know what’s what?’ But that really is the beauty about science and technology and what we have learned in this space. I know that over the past probably 15 years since I underwent my first cycle there has been a tremendous amount of research in this space, and new things are being learned all the time to help get parents and people pregnant. I do want to end my contribution by saying to people undergoing IVF at the moment: do not give up. Keep going. You will get there in the end.

Chris CREWTHER (Mornington) (15:56): I rise today to speak on the motion moved by the government on IVF and supporting growing families. Every year IVF helps thousands of Victorians to have children. It provides a means to overcome a range of health and fertility issues that otherwise would not allow them to conceive. However, unfortunately the success of IVF is not guaranteed, and many must undergo more than one cycle of expensive treatment before they are successful. The cost of this treatment places additional stress on many Victorian families and makes starting a family unachievable for some. Even with Medicare rebates, patients are left around $5000 out of pocket. This significant expense is a barrier for thousands of Victorians looking to start a family, especially as cost-of-living pressures mount and household budgets are stretched to the max.

The Liberals and Nationals are committed to improving IVF services across Victoria. In fact during last year’s election we committed to improving access to fertility services by providing a rebate of up to $2000 to undertake an initial IVF procedure using private fertility clinics, a rebate of $2000 for a subsequent procedure if the first was unsuccessful, a rebate of $500 for pre-IVF fertility testing and up to five days paid fertility leave. We also committed to supporting Victorians to have a family by removing out-of-pocket costs for the collection and initial storage of eggs for women with cancer and other conditions, which would have saved women up to $7000.

As for me personally, I have been very involved, working with young mums and those wanting children, with young children or who have lost children, whether it is through Zoe Support Australia – set up by the now Nationals member for Mallee – helping pregnant women and young mothers both in parenting and in getting them back into education and helping break the cycle of intergenerational disadvantage, or through MISS, the Miscarriage Information Support Service, based locally, an amazing service set up by local constituent Melissa King, who is the president and founder.

Let us not forget, though, the unnecessary distress that the government caused in January 2022 during their code brown by cancelling IVF services. Victoria was the only government across the country that implemented what was called the code brown, suspending IVF services and surgery. This was a devastating move and incredibly damaging to so many couples, adding many weeks and longer of waiting to the process. This is time some families did not have before success became much more difficult or too late altogether. This delay for some meant not having a family of their own. It was only through a social media campaign with thousands of signatures and families sharing their heartbreaking stories of how the suspension of IVF treatments was decreasing their likelihood of having a family that this cruel decision by the then Andrews Labor government was reversed. The government at the time also argued that staff at closed private hospitals would be transferred into the public system. This did not happen, and we only found this out much later at the Pandemic Declaration Accountability and Oversight Committee. As a result, IVF services and treatments in these specialist clinics, where these specialist health workers were employed, could not be –

The SPEAKER: Order! The time has come for me to interrupt business for the matter of public importance. The member will have the call when the matter is next before the Chair.

Business interrupted under sessional orders.