Wednesday, 27 November 2024

 Georgie CROZIER (Southern Metropolitan) (18:39): (1318) My adjournment matter this evening is for the attention of the Minister for Health, and it is in relation to the Victorian Agency for Health Information, VAHI, data for the July to September quarter, the quarter that we have just been reporting on, which was again late. Nevertheless, there was some data reported, but not all data was reported. Important data, such as the number of patients waiting for surgery and the number who received treatment at individual hospitals, was not included for several health services. This is quite extraordinary. This is a deviation from what has been provided in the past, and it is an important issue that I think Victorians need to understand.

The missing data includes the much-touted Blackburn Public Surgical Centre and the Frankston Public Surgical Centre, but there are many other hospitals, like Alfred Health’s Alfred and Sandringham hospitals, that are not included. The Austin Hospital, Heidelberg Repatriation, Eastern Health, Angliss Hospital, Blackburn, Box Hill, Healesville, Maroondah, Yarra Ranges – all are not included. The Mercy Health Mercy Hospital for Women at Werribee – not included. Monash Health, Casey Hospital, Cranbourne, Dandenong, Monash Health at Sandringham, Monash Medical Centre at Clayton, Moorabbin Hospital and Victorian Heart Hospital – I could go on. The list is quite extensive, and I am concerned that it is not being included. The government itself is constantly failing to meet its own performance targets – hospital waiting lists, ambulance response times, waiting times for a specialist appointment. Because of this ongoing mismanagement, we have a health system that is in crisis – and when I say ‘crisis’, I mean real crisis.

As Labor’s debt keeps climbing, our health system is being starved of vital funds, which leads to worse outcomes for Victorian patients. Yesterday and today there have been reports around graduate nurses at the Alfred that have been left high and dry with their graduate positions – again because of these funding cuts, it is thought. Initially they were advertised as 0.8 FTE, but yesterday they were told that they had been cut to just 0.6 FTE. That impacts not only their pay but also those graduate nurses’ progression and professional development. It is a very serious and significant issue for the thousands of nurses that are wanting to graduate, are doing a tremendous job in our hospitals and are contributing to the current workforce but also the workforce into the future.

I return to where I started, around the VAHI data for the July–September quarter that is missing. For those health services that I mentioned and others, like Western Health, Footscray, Sunshine, Sunbury, Williamstown and others, the action I seek is for the government to release the missing September quarter data immediately and explain why it was not included in the first place.