Thursday, 4 August 2022

Elective surgery

Ms CROZIER (Southern Metropolitan) (10:37): The government continues to refuse to release the latest elective surgery waitlist numbers.

Mr Davis: Where are they?

Ms CROZIER: Where are they, Mr Davis asks. That is what I want to know and that is what I think every Victorian who is waiting on the elective surgery list wants to know too, because they are the ones that are impacted here, as well as our hardworking doctors and nurses in the system, who have been let down by the failures of the government to manage our health system crisis. It is worsening by the day. In March, when the last official figures were known, there were 89 000 people on the waitlist—almost 90 000. Well, we know it is more than 90 000, because the government is not even including hospitals like Bairnsdale and Mildura in the official figures. Bairnsdale have 1400 people waiting on their elective surgery waitlist. It is growing by 300 people a month.

These are people who are waiting in pain. There are Victorians who are speaking to me that need vital cancer surgery to remove tumours. They have been cancelled, deferred and put into the wrong hospitals with the wrong procedures. It is a debacle. These people’s lives are at risk. In fact people are dying waiting to get their surgery. This is an absolute crisis, and we have got a government that refuses to release the numbers and refuses to come clean about exactly who is waiting on the elective surgery list and how many people have died waiting for surgery. I demand that they be released—released today. Stop the obfuscation. Stop the blame and the deflection. Give Victorians the truth.