Tuesday, 14 May 2024

 Georgie CROZIER (Southern Metropolitan) (20:19): (879) My adjournment matter this evening is for the Minister for Ambulance Services. Amid the chaos in Ambulance Victoria, the government is going to war with paramedics over their protracted pay dispute. The ambulance union is warning of further industrial action, including walking off the job. We are seeing on social media posts every day real-time images of ambulances ramped at hospitals across the state with lights going and paramedics being taken away from doing what they can do, with emergency departments stretched beyond capacity and those paramedics in the hospital corridors instead of out on the road responding to people who need an ambulance.

The minister has had the final report of the non-emergency patient transport (NEPT) review for months now. A discussion paper was released 12 months ago on 31 May 2023, and in the letter by the lead Steve McGhie, who spoke to stakeholders and publicly put this letter on the department’s website, he spoke about the review, how he found Victoria’s non-emergency patient transport services to have many strengths and what needs to be done. In this letter he said that Ambulance Victoria:

… is seeking to optimise the role of NEPT in freeing up emergency ambulances, while hospitals are looking for a streamlined system that is more responsive to their needs, and which provides equitable access in rural areas.

We know what this government is going to do to health services across rural and regional Victoria: it is going to decimate those health services. Amalgamations will occur. They are starving hospitals of funds, and that will force them into having to form amalgamations with larger health services. The government have been completely disingenuous about this, because they have not gone to the community and spoken to them about their needs. I am really very concerned about the government’s intentions here and what they have done.

There is a $3 billion deficit in our health system caused by the government’s own actions because they cannot meet the targets that they set – we know that through the budget papers. But, more importantly, when these amalgamations occur there will be loss of services to those communities, loss of jobs in those communities. Patients will suffer and communities will suffer. It is terribly concerning that this government are taking the action they are doing, and they are doing it because Labor cannot manage money and they cannot manage Victoria’s health system.

But getting back to the NEPT review: the action I am seeking, considering the government has been sitting on this review for so long now – it has been many, many months – is that the government release publicly the final report of that review to allow Victorians to understand exactly what is going on and, importantly, allow those within the sector to understand what on earth is happening to their services.