Tuesday, 28 July 2026

 Georgie CROZIER (Southern Metropolitan) (12:36): (1378) My question is to the Minister for Health. Alison lives in regional Victoria and is currently undergoing specialist treatment for cervical cancer. She has travelled from Mildura to Melbourne 14 times in the last 16 months. Recent changes to eligibility for air travel from Mildura under the VPTAS place an additional burden on patients and specialists. I spoke to Alison after she wrote to me:

Living in regional Victoria should never mean receiving less equitable access to healthcare. Yet the current VPTAS policy requires many patients to obtain additional medical certification simply to demonstrate that a one-hour flight is more appropriate than travelling six hours by road or nine hours by public transport.

Minister, why is the government making it harder for regional Victorians to get the support they need to access specialist care?

 Harriet SHING (Eastern Victoria – Minister for Ambulance Services, Minister for Health, Minister for Water) (12:37): Thanks, Ms Crozier, and thank you for raising this issue today. Cervical cancer is a really difficult process to live through and to get treatment for, and so I do hope that the person you have spoken with and her family have got the support around them as she continues with that path, hopefully, to remission and to an all clear.

Georgie Crozier interjected.

Harriet SHING: Ms Crozier, I am trying to begin my comments by acknowledging just how tough it is to manage a cancer diagnosis, and for people in rural and regional Victoria this is something which is compounded by the tyranny of distance. That is where the Victorian patient transport assistance scheme is so important. This is VPTAS’s work – to make sure that we can ensure that rural and regional Victorians are not left out of pocket for essential travel and are accessing the health services that they need. So from earlier this year we implemented some changes to the VPTAS to make things easier for Victorians who access the scheme, and that includes a new online claims portal, which is about reducing the challenges and administrative burdens on families and streamlining applications, expanded eligibility to clinical trials and specialist dental and updated travel rules and clearer guidelines for consistency.

In addition to that, we have also trained additional staff, who have been allocated to process those VPTAS claims. That is already leading to significant improvement in processing times. The department is also working really closely alongside claimants who are experiencing hardship to ensure that they have got the support they need while they are awaiting assessment. Again, we want to make sure that we are continuing to support people with access to VPTAS, and where there are individual cases, Ms Crozier, as I have indicated to you on a number of occasions, please have a conversation with me, with the office, around any issues that we can assist with on a case-by-case basis to ensure we do have equitable outcomes. We want to make sure that those conversations can continue in good faith and for the purpose of providing better outcomes for patients, irrespective of where they live.

 Georgie CROZIER (Southern Metropolitan) (12:40): The minister might want to spin her way out of this, but the facts are the facts, and Alison’s case is just one of many. She referenced clinical trials. The facts are that clinical trials are being cut in regional Victoria, and regional Victorians are not getting access to those clinical trials. Minister, isn’t it a fact that you have cut this critical support for vulnerable Victorian patients like Alison because of the state’s dire financial position after years of mismanagement under this government?

 Harriet SHING (Eastern Victoria – Minister for Ambulance Services, Minister for Health, Minister for Water) (12:40): Ms Crozier, again I will come back to where I started in the answer to your substantive question and to extending my empathy and sympathy to Alison and to her family. I do not want to diminish in any way her experience of a cancer diagnosis, of treatment and of what is all too often a really, really difficult path. The answer to your supplementary question is no.