Wednesday, 15 September 2021

 Mr HAYES (Southern Metropolitan) (11:15): My question is to the minister representing the Minister for Health. Is the minister aware that World Bank figures show that in the year 2000 Australia had eight hospital beds for every thousand people. That has now fallen to four hospital beds per thousand people, with the result that our hospitals are barely coping, even without a pandemic. If the government insists on rapidly expanding our population for rather questionable economic gains for some to the detriment of our environment and our community health, why does the government not prioritise the welfare of its own people in another way by massively increasing the quality and capacity of our hospitals and improve our hospital bed rates to match the ratio we had previously?

 Ms SYMES (Northern Victoria—Leader of the Government, Attorney-General, Minister for Emergency Services) (11:16): I thank Mr Hayes for his question. I just point out that the stats you have raised I think refer to national statistics. But I am sure that in any event the Minister for Health and his office will be able to provide some information as a response in accordance with the standing orders.

 Mr HAYES (Southern Metropolitan) (11:16): I thank the minister for that information. It might be very useful. Minister, we have seen packed emergency departments, ambulance ramping and woeful pandemic response times for some time now. Recent reports from the Alfred hospital indicate overworked staff, staff shortages, inadequate isolation rooms and safety breaches. It is no surprise to see the AMA strike a note of reality and say that we probably do not have the hospital capacity to open up at an 80 per cent vaccination rate. When will the government start including much more hospital infrastructure and resources into its signature Big Build strategy?

 Ms SYMES (Northern Victoria—Leader of the Government, Attorney-General, Minister for Emergency Services) (11:17): Thank you, Mr Hayes, for your supplementary question. I am more than happy to pass that on to the Minister for Health. But I will pick up on the issues that you raised about our hardworking health professionals and, like you, acknowledge that particularly in pandemic times the effort and dedication of our doctors, nurses and hospital staff to indeed respond to this health emergency are incredible. But that is also why it is so important for us to continue with restrictions in order to ensure that the hospital staff and system are supported as best as possible to deal with the increasing cases we are seeing here in Victoria.