Wednesday, 17 June 2026

 Rikkie-Lee TYRRELL (Northern Victoria) (12:27): (1361) My question today is for the Minister for Health. My constituent Neil reached out with a disgraceful story regarding the urgent care clinic at Benalla Health. This is a nurse-led public service where nursing care is free, but should they need to call on a doctor from one of the three privately owned clinics, it then becomes a user-pays model. Neil was once charged $350 for a 2-minute consult. Minister, can you please explain why patients at Benalla Health are not entitled to free urgent care treatment?

 Harriet SHING (Eastern Victoria – Minister for Ambulance Services, Minister for Health, Minister for Water) (12:27): Thank you, Ms Tyrrell, for that question. I am very happy to take some of the details on the matter that you have raised, so perhaps we can have that conversation: we can get some consent and we can work within the parameters of patient privacy to talk to what has occurred. I am very happy to look into that for you.

But let us use this opportunity perhaps to talk about the interface between public health systems and private health and healthcare service delivery. Labor governments work across three really important pillars as they are relevant to this conversation: public health, public education and public transport. In this year’s budget we have got $32 billion for the public health system. That is about making sure that we can treat and provide care and support to people in any number of different circumstances, whether that is early intervention and prevention; the Victorian Virtual Emergency Department; the help that people get when they call 000, including through secondary triage; work within our emergency departments; or access to surgery across the categories that people well know and understand. We are increasing our service response and funding across the public health system because we know that it is public health care that makes a real difference when people need access to those services and supports.

When it comes to specialists, we have added 45,000 additional specialist appointments in this year’s budget. When it comes to the interface with public health units, with primary health networks and also with the Commonwealth, we are continuing to work on how we can alleviate the cost burdens for people, who all too often are faced with those out-of-pocket expenses. The federal minister Mark Butler has been working alongside states and territories to understand where and how we can bridge those gaps. But this is also about workforce. What I would take this opportunity to do is to provide due recognition and respect to those people across our rural and regional workforces within the health system. We need to make sure that there are attraction, recruitment, retention and professional development opportunities for people, and that is where virtual and telehealth also come in.

I also want to make it clear that we are continuing to invest in the sorts of primary care and community-based care that will then take pressure off the hospital system, whether that is in emergency departments or accessing that virtual care as well. And again, where there are individual issues – and I would say this to anybody around the chamber who has got specific matters that they wish to raise – let us talk about them in a way that means that with patient consent and by reference to patient privacy and those obligations and commitments that we all have, we can have those conversations about solutions that might well help us to get to the bottom of what has occurred.

 Rikkie-Lee TYRRELL (Northern Victoria) (12:30): The emergency department at Benalla Health was redesignated as an urgent care clinic around 2018. Currently patients from Benalla have to travel to either Wangaratta or Shepparton to access emergency treatment at a hospital. Will the minister investigate the viability of hiring permanent doctors for the urgent care clinic at Benalla Health?

 Harriet SHING (Eastern Victoria – Minister for Ambulance Services, Minister for Health, Minister for Water) (12:31): Thank you very much, Ms Tyrrell, for that question. When we are talking about Commonwealth resourcing of primary care, we want to make sure that we have that funding to continue to support those nine existing sites, but then also the Commonwealth has funded 29 out of 38 of those urgent care clinics in Victoria. We do want to make sure that we can continue to support the delivery of health care, including in communities like your own. And again, we do have an ongoing commitment to the sort of care and meeting the needs that you have outlined in your question for your constituent and for people in particular who find that the tyranny of distance is often a barrier to accessing care, and that is therefore a question of equity of care. So I am really happy to have ongoing conversations with you, and indeed with anybody around this chamber or anywhere else in this place or more broadly, about supporting each and every single Victorian and their communities to access care that is safer, easier and more affordable.