Health funding
Ms CROZIER (Southern Metropolitan) (14:35): Last week the Andrews government was spruiking its budget, but when you look into the detail in the budget there are severe cuts to health. One of the areas that has been cut is the area of prevention. Preventative health is really important to prevent people from ending up in the acute care system. We know how devastating that is. We have got ambulance ramping, 000 disasters, the elective surgery waitlist, which has blown out to record numbers, and dental waitlists—well, we do not know what they are because the government has hidden the data. All of these issues are very, very significant for Victorians who are relying on our health system to be able to deliver care. It is no reflection on those healthcare workers; it is policy failure and government mismanagement by the Andrews Labor government, in particular, over the last seven years.
But the area where I think it is particularly galling is that they have gutted more than $100 million from the health protection budget, leaving breast cancer patients in regional Victoria facing the very frightening prospect of losing the vital support from specialist nurses. I refer to the McGrath Foundation, which has provided specialist nurses to those women who have had breast cancer and provided tremendous support. Well, they have received not a scrap—not one dollar—in the budget. It is disgraceful. They provide significant support to so many Victorian women around the state.