Thursday, 4 December 2025

 Moira DEEMING (Western Metropolitan) (12:46): (2061) My question is for the Minister for Health. A mother from Point Cook contacted me after she could not get a GP or community health appointment for her feverish child. With no primary care available she had no choice but to take her child to Werribee Mercy, where she then waited for over 10 hours in that department before being seen. Both the North Western Melbourne Primary Health Network and Wyndham council have warned for years that population growth in the Western Metro Region is far outpacing health service capacity, and the Victorian Auditor-General’s Office has confirmed that our emergency departments are already struggling and routinely missing basic timeliness targets. Is this crisis the result of flawed planning, or has the government allowed Western Metro families to fall behind because it assumes they can be taken for granted indefinitely?