Wednesday, 21 February 2024

Patient transport

Georgie CROZIER (Southern Metropolitan) (18:14): (730) My adjournment matter this evening is for the attention of the Minister for Health, and it is in relation to the Victorian patient transport assistance scheme, VPTAS. Recently I was contacted by a constituent of the Premier’s, and Tom shared his experience of dealing with the program.

The scheme provides financial assistance towards the cost of travel and accommodation for people living in rural and regional Victoria who need to travel long distances to access health care. Tom and his wife now live in Bendigo and have used this subsidy when travelling to Melbourne for his wife’s cancer treatment. In his email to me Tom explained that claims used to be lodged by email. Processing would take around six to eight weeks and payment would be made electronically. When making a subsequent claim Tom discovered to his surprise that applications by email were no longer available and had to be returned by post. This resulted in further delays, adding weeks to the already lengthy six- to eight-week waiting period.

As I said, Tom is a constituent of the Premier’s seat, and he has contacted the Premier twice relating to this matter. On the first occasion he got a response from the VPTAS manager, who advised them there were long delays and backlogs, and an apology was offered. On the second occasion he was advised that the VPTAS system had been reverted to a portal system as they were having trouble with the computer system and the six- to eight-week time frame awaiting processing was due to the workload.

In this day and age it is astounding that a government department has reverted to paper forms because they were having trouble with an electronic system. This is at the same time that the government were spruiking their Services Victoria legislation yesterday – the technology credentials and digital transformation of government services. As I said, that Services Victoria legislation we debated in this place yesterday.

It is an absolute disgrace that rural and regional Victorians are having to suffer like this. As Tom pointed out, claims for Medicare and health insurance are processed within a matter of days. Tom summed it up:

… sadly Regional Victorians are often required to travel to Melbourne to get the best medical treatment available and to receive compensation for travel and accommodation is important, particularly for low income families and pensioners.

He went on to say:

Given that claims to Medicare and our health insurance NIB can be dealt with in days why does it take so long for VPTAS to process claims. I believe a review of the processes and practices of the VPTAS is well over due.

So the action I am seeking is for the minister to review this as a matter of urgency and to get this system up and running for rural and regional patients.