Thursday, 30 October 2025

 Ellen SANDELL (Melbourne) (17:15): (1380) My adjournment today is to the Minister for Health – and it is good to see her in the chamber today. Today I am asking for the Victorian Labor government to commit funding to save Cohealth’s GP and counselling services in inner Melbourne. Ten days ago our community was devastated when Cohealth announced that they were going to close their community health GP clinics in Kensington, Collingwood and Fitzroy, citing insufficient state and federal government funding. Twelve thousand patients, some of the most vulnerable in our community, will be left stranded. Where will they go? Bulk-billing GP rates in the City of Melbourne are already some of the lowest in the country, and our privatised GP system, subsidised by insufficient Medicare funding, is largely set up to incentivise short, simple appointments, not the more intensive care that community health provides.

Community health care is unique. It often provides doctors who are paid a set salary so they are able to prioritise longer appointments and wraparound care for complex cases, rather than being pushed by the Medicare system to churn through patients every 10 minutes in order to make ends meet – because not every health issue can be dealt with in 10 minutes, and not everyone can afford to pay hundreds of dollars to see a private GP. But over the years governments have moved to privatise the way that GP primary health care is delivered, moving away from funding truly public GP services like community health, forcing them to compete in a privatised system. This is neoliberalism plain and simple, and it is not working. Health care is a public good, and it should be publicly funded and funded properly.

What will happen to the 12,000 patients left stranded? Many will simply not get the early intervention that they need and will end up in our public hospitals and the emergency departments, and the state will end up paying more for this, much more than if they supported Cohealth to continue treating them locally. It makes no sense. Community health services have been sounding the alarm about this for years, warning that without a different funding model, community health centres would go under. And now we are seeing the consequences. Let us be clear: this is not just a federal government responsibility. The state government is to blame here too and can solve this issue.

Technically, community health is actually a state government responsibility. Since 2019 Cohealth has been requesting state funding for rebuilding their crumbling Collingwood centre, without success. Infrastructure Victoria, the Strengthening Medicare Taskforce, Community Health First and the Australian Nursing and Midwifery Federation union have all in the past few years advocated for increased funding for community health from state and federal governments. They were all ignored. When state and federal governments fail to invest adequate funding in public services like community health, the need does not just go away; it gets heaped on crowded emergency waiting rooms and overrun social services while vulnerable people fall through ever-widening cracks.

Last week we had two community meetings, in Kensington and Richmond, with over 500 locals turning up to show their opposition to these closures. Over 5000 people – and growing – have signed a petition against the closures. Community outcry has shown Victorians want community health clinics saved, and I implore the Victorian Labor government and the federal government to listen to them and step in now before it is simply too late.