Ambulance services
Brad BATTIN (Berwick – Leader of the Opposition) (14:18): My question is to the Minister for Health. Two weeks ago Rodney’s wife was feeling unwell and fell backwards, hitting her head heavily on the footpath. She was incoherent, her pulse erratic and her pupils dilated. This was a life-threatening emergency, yet it took an hour and a half for an ambulance to arrive. Will the minister admit there is a crisis in Victoria’s ambulance system, which is putting the lives of Victorians at risk?
Mary-Anne THOMAS (Macedon – Leader of the House, Minister for Health, Minister for Ambulance Services) (14:19): I thank the Leader of the Opposition for his question, and as is always the case in this place with regard to individual circumstances, if the member wants to forward me the details, I will ensure that I get him a response specific to his constituent and their concerns.
I do want to start of course by thanking our hardworking paramedics for the work that they do every day. Last quarter was the second-busiest quarter on record, with our paramedics responding to more than 98,000 code 1 cases. In order to meet this demand our government have continued to invest not only in our on-road workforce, which by the way has grown by more than 50 per cent since our government came to power, but also in a range of alternative pathways so that we can do everything possible to ensure that ambulances are dispatched to those code 1 emergencies as quickly as possible. It is why we continue to invest in the virtual emergency department. It is why we established the urgent care clinics, which have now been proudly taken up by the Albanese Labor government and established right around the state. It is why we proudly have the largest secondary triage service of any ambulance service anywhere in the nation. And of course it is why we have implemented standards for safe and timely ambulance and emergency care – standards which I might say are already delivering real results on the ground, with transfer times between our ambulances and our hospitals improving by 13.7 per cent.
A member interjected.
Mary-Anne THOMAS: I will take up the interjection: ‘What about response times?’ Obviously the faster that you can transfer a patient from an ambulance into a hospital, the faster you can get an ambulance out on the road. This is the singular focus of the new leadership team at Ambulance Victoria. I am delighted that respected leader and former emergency management commissioner Andrew Crisp has accepted the role of the board chair at Ambulance Victoria and of course that we have recruited Jordan Emery as the CEO. Jordan comes to Ambulance Victoria with extensive experience in New South Wales and in Tasmania. As a paramedic himself, he is absolutely focused on our doing everything we can to improve ambulance response times.
Brad BATTIN (Berwick – Leader of the Opposition) (14:21): A parliamentary inquiry found Ambulance Victoria has a toxic culture of bullying, harassment and nepotism, alongside governance failures, ambulance ramping at record levels and response times that fail to meet targets. Four years ago the Victorian Equal Opportunity and Human Rights Commission identified this toxic culture. Meanwhile, ambulance ramping and response times have been highlighted for years. Why has the government failed to address these extensive problems, which are putting the lives of Victorians at risk?
Members interjecting.
The SPEAKER: Order! The member for Pascoe Vale will leave the chamber for an hour and a half. The Leader of the Opposition is warned.
Member for Pascoe Vale withdrew from chamber.
Mary-Anne THOMAS (Macedon – Leader of the House, Minister for Health, Minister for Ambulance Services) (14:23): As I previously responded in my earlier answer, our government is implementing a range of initiatives that are all designed to improve ambulance response times. Not only that, but our Ambulance Victoria leadership team and particularly our new leaders Jordan Emery and Andrew Crisp are working hard on the ongoing implementation of those VEOHRC recommendations. I have been very clear that every worker, no matter what industry they are in, deserves a workplace where they are treated with dignity and respect and where they are safe. And can I make this point: this government will always be transparent about the work that we are doing. It was those on the other side that Victorians well remember stopped reporting ambulance response time data. When they did not like the numbers, they just stopped reporting the data. So I will not be taking lectures from those on the other side of the house.