Health system
Georgie CROZIER (Southern Metropolitan) (18:50): (1886) My adjournment matter is for the attention of the Minister for Health, and it concerns a rather distressing situation which has been reported recently. Prior to the reporting of it, I was contacted by 86-year-old Doris, who had a distressing situation involving her son Terry. A few weeks ago Terry was in Sunshine Hospital dying from cancer and unable to speak or move following a stroke. Despite his terminal illness and inability to move, he was assessed and awarded a NDIS package valued at $518,000, which was intended to support his care in a community share house. This arrangement was clearly inappropriate given his condition. Terry died just seven days later on 1 August without having access to the support he actually needed – specialist palliative care. Sadly, this is not an isolated case. Palliative care specialists have raised concerns about the increasing instances of bed block across Victoria, where terminally ill patients under 65 are stuck in hospital beds awaiting NDIS assessments. These delays are preventing timely access to palliative care and forcing hospitals to keep patients in high-care beds that are not designed for long-term stays. The situation is expected to worsen after 1 November, when new Commonwealth regulations restrict access to aged care facilities for people under 65, placing even greater pressure on the NDIS to provide timely and appropriate support. This heartbreaking story of Terry and Doris illustrates a problem that demands urgent action. Victorians deserve better coordination between the state health system and the NDIS, and they deserve compassion and dignity in their final days.
The action I seek is for the minister to explain what discussions she has had with her federal colleagues, the Minister for Health and Ageing and the Minister for the National Disability Insurance Scheme, regarding this disgraceful allocation of expensive NDIS packages to palliative care patients in Victoria. As I said, this story of Doris and her son Terry highlights the problems in the system. Doris was really brave in speaking out about the situation. She wanted to highlight just where it was going so wrong. She wanted her son Terry to die with dignity. She knew he was dying, but he was given this ridiculous palliative care package that he could never, ever use as it was assessed and allocated. That is why I am asking the minister to provide that information so that hopefully we can see some advancements in sorting out these issues that are issues between the federal and state governments.