Tuesday, 18 November 2025

 Georgie CROZIER (Southern Metropolitan) (13:50): The Department of Health’s website says:

The Victorian Agency for Health Information (VAHI) is Victoria’s end-to-end health data agency, delivering trusted information to inform better decisions to improve the health and wellbeing of Victorians.

As a division of the Department of Health … we ensure that data and information on the quality, safety and performance of Victoria’s healthcare system are readily available to health services, government departments and agencies, researchers and the Victorian community.

On that website there are a whole lot of considerations that are taken into place – data on ambulance response times, waitlists for dental care, emergency care responses, hospital admissions and discharges, data on mental health services and, importantly, planned surgery for Victorians who need vital surgery – just like Rhonda, who contacted me and lives in regional Victoria. She has been five years on the waitlist for knee surgery. She regularly asks for a specialist appointment, but that has been pushed back and rescheduled up to three months at a time. This is the reality of what is happening in Victorian health services, yet the government fails to provide adequate transparency around data – refuses to report on time. It is now 18 November – this was due at the end of October, so we are halfway through the next reporting period. This government is not full of transparency, just full of spin.