Thursday, 30 May 2024

Health services

Wendy LOVELL (Northern Victoria) (18:07): (943) My adjournment matter is for the Minister for Health, and the action that I seek is for the minister to abandon the government’s plan to amalgamate Victorian health services, which would remove local oversight and management of health services. The Labor government have completely mismanaged the finances of Victoria, and now they are making desperate moves in an attempt to save money in the short term that will end up hurting Victorians in the long term. By 2028 the state is predicted to have $188 billion of debt. Victorian taxpayers will be paying $26 million every single day just in interest on our debt. The Labor government is trying to pay off the debt it has created by raising taxes on Victorians and cutting funding from critical services. It is hard to imagine a more destructive combination of policies.

One of their plans to save money is to force health services to amalgamate. Victoria currently has 76 health services across the state, each delivering tailored care to its local community. It has been reported that Labor is planning to reduce them down to 12 services – six regional and six metropolitan. This would result in health services having local oversight and management taken away from them and the control of the services transferring to managers in large hospitals far away. The amalgamation of health services will particularly impact smaller regional and rural health services and is deeply worrying to rural communities, who are seriously concerned about closures of local hospitals and cuts to local health care.

Victoria has many thriving regional and rural towns where residents’ health is cared for by locally run health services that are responsive to the demographics and particular needs of the area. If local control is taken away from rural health services and they are managed by executives based in large hospitals far away, it is inevitable that rural services will not be as responsive to the local needs as they were in the past. If these mergers go through and centralised managers in large hospitals are forced to stick to impossible budgets, it is rural health services that will be on the chopping block.

There is a real danger that frontline care in small rural towns will be cut back, opening hours will be reduced, services will be centralised in larger hospitals and rural residents will be forced to drive long distances for treatments that they used to get closer to home. It is rural and regional services that already struggle the most to attract and retain staff, and when rural healthcare workers are absorbed into a larger employment pool there is a real worry that rural services will miss out as the staff are moved around.

Reports suggest that an advisory committee is preparing a report on the government’s planned amalgamations, but Labor is completely disregarding rural communities and has not consulted at all with rural and regional patients that will be affected by these changes. Rural voices deserve to be heard in rural health care.