My adjournment matter is for the Minister for Health. It is in relation to an initiative that was outlined in the budget dealing with acute services. The line item is ‘Meeting hospital services demand’. As I understand it, there is $970 million allocated over four years. This injection of money is of course much needed in this sector and makes up part of the $2.1 billion of new health spending in this budget.
As I can see from budget paper 3, the fund will be aimed at meeting growing demand in the following areas: emergency department presentations, intensive care, maternity admissions, elective surgery, specialist clinics, palliative care, chemotherapy, radiotherapy, dialysis, subacute care and Victoria’s contribution to national blood products. All of these are crucial to improving Victorians’ quality of life at a time when they expect the government to stand by them and lend a hand in matters of life and death.
The action I seek is for the minister to provide me with a detailed breakdown of the locations and facilities in my electorate of Western Victoria Region that will receive funding under this initiative and how it will alleviate the backlog in service provision that was created under the previous government.