Wednesday, 8 February 2023

Statements on tabled papers and petitions

Department of Health

Report 2021–22

Georgie CROZIER (Southern Metropolitan) (17:10): I thought that debate would be going on for longer; it was a really important debate on the group voting ticket. But I am pleased to be able to rise and speak in this session on reports, and I want to make some comments around the Department of Health annual report 2021–22. There are a couple of hundred pages in this report, and there are the usual issues that the report speaks about. Some of the issues I want to speak about in relation to what the report is talking about are ‘Victorians have good physical health’, ‘Victorians have good mental health’, ‘Victorians act to protect and promote health’ and ‘Victorian health services are person centred and sustainable’. These are all part of the ‘Portfolio performance reporting’ section.

If you look at that, there are many targets that have been missed in the reporting, and particularly I am very concerned about the rise in suicides and the recent data that has come out, particularly in relation to this period, 2021. We were hearing from GPs and others – I was, through COVID, when we were in lockdowns – about the numbers of suicides that were occurring. They were very distressing. I was hearing from those working within the funeral parlour industry and many GPs who were speaking to me about young people and children, and particularly girls, attempting suicide and self-harm, and what we were concerned about was the number of suicides that were occurring. The government at the time was saying, ‘No, the figures haven’t increased. No, that wasn’t the case.’ Well, we do know now from the latest figures that in actual fact those figures are very alarming, and the cohorts around the numbers of suicides, I think, should concern – and I am sure they do – every single member in this place.

The government had the Royal Commission into Victoria’s Mental Health System, but when you have got an increase in the number of people committing suicide, the number of young people self-harming and the number of people with an increase in mental ill health, you know that there are many, many issues that are going to be facing those particular people and their families who are subject to that. So I want to just say that whilst this report talks about all the things the government is doing, the reality is something that is quite different, and I could say that about every aspect of this report. Around the occupational health and safety of our health workforce, we know that those figures are increasing in terms of violence, and people within hospitals – nurses and others – are saying the violence is increasing. The prevalence of and the number of times that violence is occurring are really quite alarming.

If I look at some of the issues around our most vulnerable – and it does talk about some of our most vulnerable cohorts and particularly those vulnerable cohorts at this time which were impacted by COVID and the lockdowns – the lockdowns hurt the vulnerable the most. We know that. Let us not forget the public housing towers that were locked down. Let us not forget about all those people who lost their jobs and lost their businesses. Is it any wonder that that caused so much grief at that time and the numbers were on the increase? And of course look at the numbers of children that were affected by the remote learning that was done and the schools that were shut down. At national cabinet it was said, ‘Don’t shut down the schools’, but not here in Victoria. Daniel Andrews shut down the schools. That harm to those children and their inability to have that social engagement – those mental health impacts, the learning implications, going backwards with learning and all of those issues – despite the efforts of those around them is no reflection on them. But it is government policy, and those impacts will be there for a generation in some cases. The impacts of what occurred over the last three years through COVID are very, very significant. It is why we called for a royal commission, so that we could understand exactly what went on and to ensure that that would never happen again. I will have more to say on this report; there is much in it. There is lots in it, and I will speak to the report over coming weeks because I do believe that we need to understand further the implications to the mental health and wellbeing of Victorians.