Thursday, 10 February 2022

Western Metropolitan Region hospitals

Dr CUMMING (Western Metropolitan) (22:09): (1732) My adjournment matter is for the Minister for Health in the other place, and the action that I seek is for the minister to prioritise the construction of the Melton and Footscray hospitals. The new Footscray Hospital is under construction. It will cut wait times and reduce pressures on nearby hospitals, and it will have an increase of nearly 200 beds and will treat an additional 15 000 patients each year and around 20 000 a year through the emergency department. It is meant to be completed in 2025.

In July last year the government identified a site in Cobblebank for a new Melton hospital. At that time the minister said money was expected to be put aside in this upcoming budget for construction, which he hoped would commence within the next 12 months. The hospital is expected to be in operation in 2026–27.

Melton is one of the biggest growth areas in Victoria, and by 2050 over half a million people will call the City of Melton home. The population of Maribyrnong will increase by 67 per cent in the next 20 years. While the hospitals are needed to cater for the growing population, they are needed now. Last year we saw Sunshine and Footscray hospitals unable to cope with the demand. Earlier this year we saw them both under extreme pressure. We are in the grips of a health crisis with a healthcare system that is unable to cope. It is not just COVID, it is the mental health crisis that we also are in. The long-term effects of COVID will need ongoing treatment, so we need these hospitals for catching up with surgeries and for catching up with diagnostics. They have been delayed in the last two years. So what are the priorities of this government? We do not need the rail loop now; we need hospitals, and Footscray and Melton hospitals need to be made a priority.

We have on Facebook Melton Hospital Group, which almost has 3000 members, and I encourage that group and I wish that the government would actually look at the concerns of the local residents in Melton. They have had many concerns around Meadowbrook and the maternal and childcare services that are there, but they are also concerned about if this government have actually transferred the ownership of land, and they want it recorded in the registry.