Our Plan For Victorians’ Mental Health

Helen & Ted with Jason Dowling of The Sunday Age after launching the policy

 Our plan for mental health released last week will return Victoria to the forefront of mental health care in Australia with $225.7 million of initiatives.

The plan is designed to tackle a problem that has become the western
world’s pandemic – and is getting worse. Read more about…

Pike’s Waiting List Lies Demolished

Labor’s pre-election waiting list swindle is in tatters today following revelations that the government has stopped patients getting hospital appointments to prevent them joining the surgery waiting list.

This is one of the worst frauds perpetrated by any government in the
history of the Victorian health system.

Read more about…

Did iSOFT lie to the London Stock Exchange about its HealthSMART contract?

Karen Dearne’s latest extraordinary article about the troubled UK firm iSOFT, contains the startling suggestion that the firm lied to the London Stock Exchange about its HealthSMART contract.

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Liberals Have No Plans To Privatise Public Hospitals

This week Bronwyn Pike was trying desperately to deflect attenion from her wretched handling of our public hospitals by claiming the Liberal Party is bent on their privatisation.

Nothing could be further from the truth. The Liberal Party has no plans to privatise our public hospitals.

Furthermore, Labor’s attack on the private system is hypocritical as Bronwyn Pike uses the private health system to treat patients when she can’t get them into public hospitals. The Liberal Party’s focus is on sorting the waiting list crisis. Labor’s Health Minister should be paying attention to the public hospital mess, not drawing imaginary bows.

Public Accounts & Estimates Committee Slams Tender Process for HealthSMART

The government dominated Public Accounts and Estimates Committee has slammed the way troubled UK software firm iSOFT was awarded a $22.5m contract as part of the HealthSMART project.

ISOFT in the UK is reeling after revelations of accounting irregularities and delays in its dealings with the NHS. Just today it was revealed that the British government made secret upfront payments of £82m to stop it going bust.

Now even Labor MPs have conceded that a Department of Human Services project manager had “inappropriate social contact” with the company. Read more about…

Bronwyn Pike or your doctor: Who do you believe?

‘These kinds of claims, that people are dying while waiting [for] appointments, I find very, very hard to believe’.

These were Health Minister Bronwyn Pike’s words yesterday when confronted with more evidence that people are dying in Victoria while waiting for treatment at our public hospitals. Read more about…

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…

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…

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…