Tuesday, 2 August 2022

 Mr MEDDICK (Western Victoria) (19:43): (2022) My matter tonight is for the Minister for Health, and the action I seek is for the minister to meet with representatives of the HMS Collective community paramedics to see how this not-for-profit, community-based health service can support our health system, the hospital staff who are carrying the burden and the patients who have been until now missing out on skilled community-based health care.

This initiative was started by a registered paramedic and registered nurse. HMS fills a crucial gap in our health system by providing acute and chronic community-based health care. HMS Collective employ a highly skilled and under-utilised workforce of retired or unemployed paramedics and nurses to provide high-quality health care for people at home, keeping them out of ambulances and hospitals. The community health model is based on proven and successful models in Canada, the USA, Europe and the UK. This not-for-profit initiative provides a circuit-breaker in our health system, which is currently overwhelmed.

For many people who can be treated at home, an ambulance call-out or hospitalisation are currently their only options. These people then line the corridors of hospitals for hours because they are considered low-priority patients. Having rows of patients in hospitals who could have been successfully tended to in their own homes and communities also affects the mental health of hospital staff who do not have the capacity to look after them in our understaffed hospitals.

HMS Collective are led by registered paramedics and nurses, allied health professionals and support partners who are particularly skilled and experienced at working in out-of-hospital environments. I hope the minister will meet with representatives of HMS Collective to discuss the potential implementation of this highly successful model to help relieve the current pressures on our healthcare system.