Tuesday, 22 February 2022

Elective surgery

Ms CROZIER (Southern Metropolitan) (17:55): (1754) My adjournment matter is for the attention of the Minister for Health, and it really goes to the issue around transparency. Over the last month or so Victoria has been in a code brown, and that has meant that thousands of Victorians have had their surgeries cancelled. They have been cancelled indefinitely, and people have no idea when they will be able to have that vital surgery. It is named elective surgery, but it is essential surgery. It is vital surgery for many people. Now, today in question time the minister was asked about the number of people on the waitlist. He could not—or would not—answer that question.

Dr Bach: He’s hopeless.

Ms CROZIER: Well, Dr Bach, I find it astounding that he would not answer that question—a very legitimate question because of the impact that the bans on elective surgery have had in not only the public system but also the private system, because as we know, there are record numbers of people on the elective surgery waitlist in the public system. There were record numbers prior to COVID hitting, and now the numbers almost fill an entire MCG. Coupled with the private system waitlist, the MCG is probably overflowing. But he could not tell us those numbers. Last week at the Pandemic Declaration Accountability and Oversight Committee public hearings we were asking the CEOs from some of the largest health services in metropolitan Melbourne about their waitlists. They could tell us on the spot how many patients were on the elective surgery waitlist. So I find it just extraordinary, as I said, that the minister refuses to provide this information to the Victorian public.

The other issue that we heard about on the pandemic committee was the number of nurses that came from the private system into the public system, and we were told there were none. They did not come in and work on the wards like the government told us was going to happen. Some patients—not many—were transported out into the private system. The action I seek from the minister is to provide the number of COVID-positive patients that were transferred out of the major hospital centres into the private system—where they came from and where they went—for the period of the code brown, 19 January to 14 February.