Labor, Liberal parties pledge to fix Victorian healthcare crisis

Major political parties in Victoria have announced tit-for-tat policies on health, with both promising to fix the state’s besieged healthcare system.

Victorian Premier Daniel Andrews at the Royal Children’s Hospital. Picture NCA NewsWire / Ian Currie

Daniel Andrews will set up two free respiratory clinics for children while the state’s opposition revealed plans to build a second Royal Children’s Hospital, as the parties went head to head on health three months out from a state election.

Opposition Leader Matthew Guy and opposition health spokeswoman Georgie Crozier announced plans to spend $900m of the $35bn they will save after shelving the Suburban Rail Loop’s first stage on the hospital, to be built in Melbourne’s booming western suburbs.

“We can‘t keep having health facilities that are all in the CBD of Melbourne and not located in areas like Melbourne’s growing western suburbs,” Mr Guy said.

“This facility … is so overdue and so important to the western suburbs.”

Victorian opposition leader Matthew Guy. Picture: AAP

But on the same day and at the existing Royal Children’s Hospital in the inner-city suburb of Parkville, Mr Andrews announced the GP clinics that he said would ease the burden on emergency departments by treating 150 patients a week.

“There is only one Royal Children’s Hospital,” he said.

“(The clinics are) free of charge for everybody. We know flu has been a challenge this year, Covid, RSV … somewhere to go that is free and open when you need it to be is critically important.”

One of the clinics to open next week will be adjacent to the Royal Children’s Hospital and operate after hours and on weekends, while another will open at the Monash Hospital in Clayton, in Melbourne’s southeast, in a month.

Mr Andrews said the latest respiratory clinics, backed by the Nursing Union and Royal Australian College of General Practitioners, were in addition to 50 established in December last year that have treated 70,000 patients.

Asked on Thursday if he would match the opposition’s commitment to build a new children’s hospital, Mr Andrews said he would not, but pointed to a newly constructed women and children’s hospital in Sunshine, in Melbourne’s west, along with the redevelopment of the Werribee Mercy Hospital as health projects completed and under way.

Health Minister Mary-Ann Thomas criticised the opposition’s plan to build a 275-bed new hospital in Werribee.

“What we have seen from the Liberals is a list of partially funded infrastructure projects that will be shells because we have seen no announcement in relation to staffing these facilities,” she said.

“Our government is implementing a plan right now to recruit and train additional healthcare workers, of which 5000 will be nurses.”

Mr Guy said he would make another announcement soon on workforce issues.

“We obviously understand there will need to be staffing requirements,” he said.

“We have come out early on some very big announcements, which oppositions don’t usually do but we are doing.”

Patients waited in lines for up to nine hours at the Royal Children’s Hospital in early August, amid soaring flu and respiratory infections this winter.

A spokeswoman for the hospital declined to comment on Thursday.

Health care is set to be a major issue in the lead-up to the November 26 election, amid reports of overfull emergency departments, regular ambulance ramping and a shortage of available bulk-billed appointments with general practitioners. The news came a day after opposition calls for the red shirts affair to be investigated again, amid whistleblower claims the police investigation was nobbled.

Victoria Police Chief Commissioner Shane Patton defended the probe on Thursday.

“I was briefed regularly on these matters and I am very comfortable that there has been no interference in relation to this investigation whatsoever,” Mr Patton told 3AW radio.