Tuesday, 10 September 2024

Central Immunisation Records Victoria

Georgie CROZIER (Southern Metropolitan) (18:29): (1125) My adjournment matter is also for the Minister for Health and it is in relation to the Central Immunisation Records Victoria, or CIRV, system. CIRV is the cloud-based immunisation management system built by the Department of Health that councils are required to use to register all vaccinations administered. When CIRV was rolled out two years ago, councils received correspondence in 2022, almost two years ago, guaranteeing that:

The CIRV program will be supplied and supported by the Department of Health to users free of charge. The program, eLearning modules, ongoing support and maintenance, and text messages will remain free of charge throughout the lifecycle of the platform.

But less than two years later, local councils across Victoria have been told by the Department of Health in a letter dated 31 July 2024 that a new co-funding model will commence on 1 October 2024, in a couple of weeks time. This consists of a base fee of $6000 per year plus $2 per immunisation. This is nothing more than another desperate tax grab by a Labor government that cannot manage money and cannot manage health. Instead of cost shifting onto local councils, the Allan Labor government should be working with local government to ensure access to immunisations for the community.

Councils provide 45 per cent of all immunisations carried out in Victoria for children aged two months to four years of age and around 90 per cent of immunisations due at school age. With this new measure being introduced in a few weeks time by the Allan government – as I said, in a desperate cash grab because the budget is in a dire situation – the councils will now be forced to absorb those costs, which will then mean a reduction in services in those local council areas, or the ratepayers will be paying for the costs. The costs will be passed on to the ratepayers at a time of a cost-of-living crisis. So the action I seek from the minister is to immediately review this decision; to support local councils and those communities and, importantly, support those immunisation programs; and to prioritise this but to not cost shift and force councils to have to forgo services or force an ongoing payment onto ratepayers to pay for these ongoing charges.