Wednesday, 29 November 2023

 Ryan BATCHELOR (Southern Metropolitan) (17:17): I rise to speak on the Calvary Health Care Bethlehem annual report 2022–23, tabled on 1 November 2023. Opened in 1941 as a private hospital offering maternity, medical and surgical services, Calvary Health Care Bethlehem is a publicly funded health service recognised as a specialist palliative care service and a statewide provider of services for progressive neurological diseases. The service operates from a site on Kooyong Road in Caulfield South, which has recently been transformed by a complete redevelopment. Over the last few years the services have been in temporary locations, including in Parkdale, while the existing site was demolished and rebuilt. The new buildings in Kooyong Road opened earlier this year and now offer brand new facilities for a specialist 32-bed subacute hospital and health service with an integrated retirement living, health and residential aged care precinct. They are very impressive and modern new facilities offering new ways of integrating care needs for the local community.

Their services are greatly valued by many, and whilst they have impressive new facilities, I rise today particularly to thank the staff at Calvary Bethlehem and their community palliative care team that I have unfortunately got to know over the course of the year. They were kind, gentle and supportive, and you cannot ask for much more than that. I was keen to make this contribution in the last of our sitting weeks for 2023 as a bookend to my inaugural speech given on the first sitting day of this calendar year. I spoke in that speech about my mum. She was diagnosed with advanced stage 4 cancer in late April this year, and it was beyond treatment. She died in August just a week before her 72nd birthday.

During those months she received care and support from many, primarily her partner Greg but also the nurses, occupational therapists and physiotherapists at Calvary Bethlehem. So I wanted to place on record today my thanks to everyone who helped care for her during her final months and everyone who did everything that they could that enabled her to die peacefully at home, just as she had wished. It has been an incredibly hard year, but I want to thank everyone, including colleagues across the Parliament, who have helped my family get through it all.