Wednesday, 12 November 2025

 Sarah MANSFIELD (Western Victoria) (23:21): (2089) My adjournment matter is for the Minister for Health, and the action I am seeking is for the minister to commit to properly funding palliative care services across Victoria. Victoria has a rapidly growing and ageing population. Victorians are living longer, and many are living with chronic illnesses. For people diagnosed with complex or terminal illnesses, palliative care provides much-needed comfort, dignity and support not only to the patients but to their loved ones during what is often an extremely difficult time in their lives. Palliative care is often just thought of as end-of-life medical care, like pain relief, provided in the very last days or weeks before death. But it is so much more than that. It is care that focuses on improving quality of life for people with life-threatening conditions and their families, and it is holistic in nature – physical, psychological, social and spiritual.

Unfortunately, many Victorians, particularly those in rural and regional Victoria, struggle to access palliative care. This is due to a combination of limited workforce availability, lack of knowledge and training within the existing workforce, complex funding systems that do not reflect the multidisciplinary and holistic nature of care, the lack of system planning and coordination and also, crucially, underfunding. The Victorian system is desperately stretched beyond capacity. It must be properly funded to ensure care is available for those who need it, when and where they need it. According to Palliative Care Victoria, just today 62 Victorians will die without receiving specialist palliative care at any stage through the course of their illness. Some of these people may not have needed it and some might have received palliative care in other forms, such as from non-specialist providers, but the reality is that many did not receive access to care that could have significantly improved their quality of life. Currently only a tiny fraction of the state health budget is directed towards palliative care. With so many people already lacking access and the expected increase in demand for services, without a significant shift in prioritisation and funding, even more will miss out. Minister, I urge you to listen to the experts on this issue, such as Palliative Care Victoria and the Victorian Palliative Care Alliance. It is time to properly fund palliative care services so Victorians can have equitable access and higher quality care when and where they need it.