Thursday, 2 May 2024

Adjournment

Patient transport

Jade BENHAM (Mildura) (17:09): (631) My adjournment is for the Minister for Health, and the action I seek is that the minister increase funding for the Victorian patient transport assistance scheme so that residents of my electorate are not put at further disadvantage in regard to accessing suitable specialist health care. The Victorian patient transport assistance scheme, or VPTAS, has been helping Mildura residents to offset the costs associated with travel and accommodation when accessing specialist medical treatment that cannot be provided locally. And that list is growing, given the lack of specialists in Mildura, which is the majority of specialist services. However, a review of VPTAS guidelines and payments has threatened to make it even harder for regional and rural patients to access these services. We know that this is on the horizon, particularly in regard to taxi and air travel reimbursement, which the Department of Health says is reaching non-sustainable levels.

I ask the minister what the alternative may be. Given we have no passenger rail services, air travel is the only means, apart from a V/Line bus that leaves at 4 am and is unsuitable for those suffering from debilitating and terminal illnesses – people who need specialist care, and not in a good way, and are unable to get on the V/Line bus at 4 am. It is not uncommon for flights from Mildura to Melbourne to be in excess of $1000, and we anticipate that will get worse with the Bonza situation. Like I said, with no train and no public transport servicing the Mildura Airport, a taxi is often the only way patients can get to and from both airports, and yet it is not sustainable for the department to reimburse Mildura residents for a flight to access vital specialist medical treatment. How can that be? That is what patients are being told at the moment: it is not sustainable for the department to reimburse Mildura residents to access specialist health care. How can patients be expected to foot the bill without any reimbursement and without any assistance from the public sector when those services have been taken away from the Mildura Base Public Hospital?