Wednesday, 3 June 2026

 Georgie CROZIER (Southern Metropolitan) (19:10): (2563) My adjournment matter this evening is for the Minister for Health, and the action I seek is for the minister to provide an urgent response to requests made more than two months ago, by me, seeking the inclusion of medical clinics servicing Victoria’s alpine resorts within the department’s small rural health services framework for limited X-ray services. On 9 April this year I wrote to the then minister regarding concerns raised by Australian Rural Medical Services, which provides healthcare services at Mount Buller, Falls Creek and Mount Hotham. To date no response has been received, despite follow-up correspondence and the snow season now being upon us. The request is both modest and sensible. Victoria already allows appropriately trained nurses and doctors in eligible small rural health services to undertake limited X-ray services where employing a radiographer is impractical. It is a proven model that has operated safely for many years in rural and remote communities. Yet alpine medical clinics, despite serving some of the most isolated and challenging environments in the state during winter, remain excluded from the eligibility framework. What makes this situation particularly frustrating is that staff employed by Australian Rural Medical Services have been approved to undertake these X-ray services elsewhere in Victoria. I am advised one nurse working at Mount Buller has been deemed qualified and authorised to perform limited X-rays, just not at Mount Buller itself – that beggars belief.

Without access to onsite X-ray services, patients with relatively straightforward injuries are forced into unnecessary transfers to obtain diagnostic imaging. This of course places additional pressures on Ambulance Victoria and increased demand on our already stretched regional health services and can result in long delays for injured skiers, snowboarders, workers and visitors seeking treatment. The irony is that allowing appropriately trained clinicians to undertake limited X-rays on the mountain would reduce pressure on the health system, reduce patient transfers and improve patient care, particularly during peak snow periods, when local services experience a surge in demand. This is not a request for a new program or a costly expansion of services; it is a request for the government to apply an existing rural health model to a unique setting where the need is obvious and the benefits are clear. The action I seek is for the minister to explain why no response has been provided to correspondence sent more than two months ago and to advise whether the government will urgently review the eligibility criteria to allow limited X-ray services to operate at Victoria’s alpine resort medical clinics before the snow season intensifies.