Steve Price: Labor should be booted and made front an inquiry for what it’s done to health

Victoria’s health system fell into decay as Labor was hijacked by Dan Andrews’ egotistical train obsession. It’s time for change.

Six blocks down the road from the Herald Sun and Sky news leaders debate on Tuesday night, the Box Hill Hospital again went into code orange for ambulance operations.

It’s the second highest alert.

Well known for hosting emergency patients in tents in the driveway, I’m sure the doctors and nurses there would have liked to be up the road at Box Hill Town Hall.

After two years of working with Covid and wearing PPE (personal protective equipment) it would have been helpful to have had some frontliners asking questions of the candidates.

On health alone, the Victorian Labor government deserves to be punished by voters this weekend.

Indeed, it should be kicked out of office and forced to front an inquiry for what it has and hasn’t done on health.

Instead, Labor has used its mates in the health unions to run a protection racket for Premier Daniel Andrews.

A tent outside the Box Hill hospital for patient overflow was set up in August. Picture: David Crosling

Victoria Ambulance Union boss Danny Hill had the hide to insert himself into the dying days of the election campaign to describe the Opposition as a “virus”, on his members.

Standing next to a smiling Premier, that performance would have had all those ramped patients outside hospitals feeling even more ill.

This was nothing more than a political hatchet job on behalf of the Premier and Hill ought to speak with his union mate from the United Firefighters Union, Peter Marshall.

Marshall could alert Hill to how temporarily joining forces with Andrews can be. So angry are Marshall’s firefighter members they will be out at polling booths in uniform at the Premier’s seat of Mulgrave telling all and sundry not to vote for him.

How the ambulance union can act this way is beyond belief.

Can someone explain to the Ambulance union chief that Labor has been running health in Victoria for 19 of the past 26 years?

Hill’s mate Daniel has, for 11 of the past 20 years, either been Health Minister or Premier and when he first won Government in 2014 Andrews in his acceptance speech told Victorians: “We will not let you down.”

Tell that to the people who have watched relatives die on the front lawn of their homes waiting for one of Mr Hill’s ambulances to arrive.

I’m pretty sure the so called “virus opposition” Hill slagged off at had nothing to do with that.

Tell it to the young cancer patient or the elderly stroke patient forced to wait for hours in those Box Hill Hospital tents. I don’t think that was the Opposition’s fault either.

Premier Daniel Andrews meets trainee paramedics at the Ambulance Victoria training centre at Dandenong South. Picture: Andrew Henshaw

I would have loved to have seen 18-year-old William — another patient forced to wait 27 hours in a hallway for a bed at Box Hill back in August — asking questions up the road at the debate.

Just off six months of chemo for Hodgkins Lymphoma I wonder who he blames?

Union boss Hill and Premier Andrews blame Covid for the pressure on the transport of patients. If that’s the real reason, why during this campaign has the Premier refused to even utter “Covid”, let alone warn Victorians that like Queensland and NSW we might soon be back in masks.

If ambulance ramping isn’t reason enough not to vote Labor back this weekend, handing them 23 of the past 26 years in office by the next election, what about what the AMA said in their election statement this week?

The GP’s union said: “This crisis has built up over decades due to a lack of sophisticated, co-ordinated, long-term planning.”

Victoria’s public hospital staffing and bed numbers – a State Government responsibility – are below the national average and in “extremes”, the AMA said.

Numbers show health workers in the Andrews’ health system quitting at a rate of more than 200 a week.

So, with Labor running Victoria for 19 of the past 22 years — and with the man who wants to run your state for another four likely to win — you need to ask, if you can’t provide proper health care what will it take to get Victorians to give the other side a go?

If a crippling predicted debt set to hit $162.7 billion in 2024-25 — more than Queensland, NSW and Tasmania combined — then what?

If not budget blowouts on massive infrastructure projects like the West Gate Tunnel or the smoke and mirrors Suburban Rail Loop, then what?

The Suburban Rail Loop is a smoke and mirrors Andrews’ pet project. Picture: Supplied

Heroin injecting rooms and the dishonesty of not telling voters where the next one will be or the secret four corruption notices and what they are about – then what?

Health care … the provision of GPs, functioning emergency departments, a working ambulance service, funding for nurses and cutting elective surgery waiting lists should be priority one.

For Victorians, that’s not the case.

This government has been hijacked by one man’s ego obsessed with train crossings and underground rail.

As the voters’ queue for the right to vote this weekend they should remember what matters most from a state government.

On any level, Labor has failed the health of Victorians and on that alone they deserve to be voted out.

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Originally published as Steve Price: Labor should be booted and made front an inquiry for what it’s done to health