Tuesday, 12 November 2024

 Wayne FARNHAM (Narracan) (19:17): (919) My adjournment this evening is for the Minister for Health, and the action I seek is that the minister give my electorate a firm date for when the West Gippsland Hospital will start. In 2022 the state government made a commitment to build a new West Gippsland Hospital. That hospital was to start in 2024. With seven weeks left to go, no start will happen. I had the unfortunate situation on Sunday to be in the palliative care ward with my father, who passed away on Sunday morning. I was sitting there listening to my father and I had said my goodbyes, and he said to me, ‘Son, one thing in your job, never let go of your integrity.’ So I am asking this government to stand by theirs. They promised to start this hospital in 2024 and to deliver this hospital in 2028.

I was sitting in that ward with my father. It is in a renovated balcony in that hospital. That hospital was built in 1939. I have a large family; I have five sisters and two brothers. We all had to file in there and say goodbye in a very cramped little room. The staff were excellent, as they always are. But my family were angry, and rightly so, that we had to say goodbye to our father in these conditions. It is not good enough for this government to promise one thing and not deliver. It is not good enough that I know more of my constituents will have to suffer the indignity of sitting in that crap room saying goodbye to their family.

I am asking the minister to give us a firm date on when this will actually start. I am asking the minister to do what my father said and keep their integrity intact, and also the Treasurer and the Premier. There are three people responsible for this. I want them to stand up and deliver what they said they were going to do. It is not political capital when you see people going through what they had to go through. This is people’s lives. Man up and build the hospital like you said you were going to do.