Tuesday, 16 June 2026

 Melina BATH (Eastern Victoria) (21:58): (2584) My adjournment matter this evening is for the Minister for Health. It relates to a very important sector in our rural communities, and that is the bush nursing centres. I have a number in my Eastern Victoria electorate, and they are centred in East Gippsland in Buchan, in Ensay, in Cann River, and in Gelantipy, Swifts Creek and Dargo. They are the heartbeat, often, of these little communities, which are very, very remote. Often the trusted staff are more like family than just casual staff. This begins often at birth, and for many, many years they can care for family members and whole families. These services, by being so remote, often provide the full gamut of services from immunisation and birth to palliative care and emergency in acute situations. The bush nursing centres in Swifts Creek and Dargo have written to me recently. I think I raised Swifts Creek a little while ago. They are in a dire situation, and that is because departmental funding has not kept pace with operational costs. Indeed in recent years there has been a modest increase – a 2 per cent increase, almost not keeping up with CPI – in terms of funding, but the operational costs have risen by almost 20 per cent. So they have had to make harsh and difficult decisions that they are very frustrated with and cut back some of their services, cut back their opening hours and of course then cut back their care. These people care deeply about their patients and their community. Some of the other things that happen is bush nursing centres require processes such as reporting, accreditation audits, mandatory memberships, all of which cost a significant amount, but there is no additional funding. Safety and service delivery pressures are also increasing.

In short, these regional people are doing it tough. These communities deserve the best health care. There are service providers there and there are nursing staff there that really deserve to be funded to treat these people in the way they need to, and not only these people. It is a tourist area and in popular times there are increased visitations and tourists. The action I seek from the minister is to raise the funding for these bush nursing centres to ensure that funding keeps pace with cost increases and specifically prioritise urgent support for the centres in Dargo and Swifts Creek, as well as the others I have mentioned.