Thursday, 31 July 2025

Mildura Base Public Hospital

Jade BENHAM (Mildura) (17:34): (1239) My adjournment matter this evening is for the Minister for Health, who I note is at the table, which I am very thankful for. Mildura Base Public Hospital is yet again in code yellow today for the third time in June and July, but there have been plenty of times when it was borderline but, due to the exceptional work of staff and administration, they were able to avoid it. The action I seek tonight is immediate investment in bed capacity at Mildura Base Public Hospital.

Let me give you some facts and figures around bed capacity at Mildura Base Public Hospital. The catchment of MBPH is 56,972, plus upstream in Robinvale another 8000 and 9305, according to the health services plan from New South Wales. So the hospital services almost 75,000 people on average, with admissions being around 25,000 per year and growing. At the moment there are 100 attendances through 16 cubicles in the ED every single day. We have got 68 adult general ward beds, eight ICU, eight paediatric, eight short-stay and 22 subacute. So excluding the mental health and maternity wards, because they are specialist wards, MBPH serves its 75,000-strong catchment with a total bed capacity of 130. That is a hospital system that fits the population of a small country town, not a regional city like Mildura. We would not accept one police officer patrolling a city of 75,000, so why do we tolerate this in health care? The hardworking staff have even had to open the day surgery to care for overnight patients, which adds only another four to eight at best. So we are utilising Robinvale, which is an hour away; Ouyen, which is an hour away in a different direction; and Wentworth beds over the river in New South Wales because we simply have to.

I have repeatedly called on this government to stop puffing their chest out about bringing this hospital back to public and actually start investing in it like they promised. Anything else is absolutely disgraceful. When the hospital came back to public, the government and the then member, the then Labor independent, promised patients over profits, which was a fallacy in the first place. So how about now patients before politics? I ask that the minister immediately invest what was promised into Mildura Base Public Hospital for the sake of the health of our community.