Helen’s Speech to the ANF on Industrial Relations

Last Thursday I had the pleasure of addressing the annual conference of the Australian Nursing Federation. Nurses had asked me how the changed industrial relations environment after Work Choices will affect them if we win the election in November. This is what I told them: Read more about…

Doctor Shortage Hits The Wimmera

The western Wimmera town of Kaniva looks set to lose its only doctor when its GP leaves at the end of the year.

The Wimmera Mail Times reports deep concerns that local medical services will be centralised at Nhill. Read more about…

Fears Over Doctor Numbers In Terang

The Terang Clinic is is set to lose three of its four doctors next year according to ABC news reports.  Read more about…

Telstra Wants To Axe Phone Boxes In Glen Eira

Caulfield is one of the many suburbs being targeted by Telstra’s payphone blitz. The City of Glen Eira is on Telstra’s hit list with fifteen payphones facing potential removal. Read more about…

Top Doctor Points to 500 Dead Victorians a Year, Labels Bracks and Brumby ‘funeral directors’

Dr Peter Lazzari, one of Victoria’s most senior physicians, was blunt and direct on Southern Cross Radio today:

These waiting list figures of 500 deaths doesn’t even account for those who have continued to suffer pain, who have continued to suffer deterioration in their health, or maybe eventually get their operation but it’s higher risk

Read more about…

$48 million for New Doctors

It was with great pride and satisfaction that Ted Baillieu and I unveiled our policy to attract new doctors to regional areas suffering under the current chronic shortfall. Read more about…

Bronwyn Pike: Hospital Crisis? It’s just a ‘local issue’

That’s the Health Minister’s response to the crisis facing Wonthaggi Hospital, according to the South Gippsland Sentinel-Times (20 June). As regional users of emergency health services await desperately needing funding, health bureaucrats disappear on holiday and the Minister passes the buck. Read more about…

Mums Wind up Paying the Penalty for Government Incompetence in Sale

The continuing incompetence of the Bracks Government is now being felt by new mums at Sale Hospital, where two paediatricians have been driven from the facility, unable to cope with the unrelenting workload and the absence of any future planning by the Government.

Talking to the Yarram Standard News (21 June), Michelle Dillow worries that when her second child is due in September they may be shunted off elsewhere because Sale Hospital can’t cope. “It does make you a bit uneasy, knowing if something goes wrong you may have to be transported to another hospital where they have all the services.”

Meanwhile, other soon-to-be mums in Sale will be waiting six months before another paediatrician arrives – from South Africa.

Except for emergency services, paediatrics, staffing levels and after hours care, Bronwyn Pike has got regional health in Victoria totally under control!

A Five-Year Wait – But Still No Money for Wonthaggi Hospital

For five years Wonthaggi Hospital has been begging the Bracks Government for a proper accident and emergency service, reports the Leongatha Star (27 June).

And after the current budget – they’re still waiting. No funding has been forthcoming despite the 100% rise in patients presenting for emergency treatment over the last five years. That translates to 10,000 cases a year.

It’s not as though it’s a major undertaking, either. The hospital has the facilities, but not the money to staff it.

How bad does it have to get before Health Minister Bronwyn Pike takes some responsibility for the health services crisis in Victoria?