Amanda Rishworth (Kingston, Australian Labor Party, Shadow Parliamentary Secretary for Health) Share this | Hansard source

I am not willing to take that question. I am talking about the cuts that your government is currently making. Do not try and make this into some ridiculous thing. We invested money into health. Let me continue talking about the cuts that you have made and particularly my concern about Medicare Locals.

I was very pleased to attend the recent AGM of the Southern Adelaide-Fleurieu-Kangaroo Island Medicare Local. It is a great example of what Medicare Locals are achieving round the country. The Southern Adelaide-Fleurieu-Kangaroo Island Medicare Local has offered more than 20,000 clinical services in the last year. I would just like to run through some of these figures—and I am very pleased that the Minister for Health is in the chamber now, because he can pay attention to the great job that the Southern Adelaide-Fleurieu-Kangaroo Island Medicare Local is doing. Of those 20,000 clinical services, 7,829 occasions of service were in mental health and 893 individuals were assessed through the headspace program. Child immunisation rates have been maintained at 90 per cent in the region, thanks to the work of the Medicare Local office. The Medicare Local has supported 40 general practitioners to achieve accreditation, increasing the availability of health services to people in southern Adelaide. It has provided 551 services under the Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander health program.

Over 800 patients were attended to in one year in nursing homes, ensuring that people were prevented from going into hospital. This is a particularly important element of the Medicare Locals which should not be ignored: the role that they play in ensuring that patients do not end up in hospital. This is good for individual patients, and it is also incredibly important for the costs of the hospital system. This is important primary health care.

I am also pleased that the Minister for Health is in the chamber now, because, hopefully, he can answer my question. I have written to him about whether or not he will honour the $15 million to the neonatal unit at the Flinders Medical Centre. I wrote to him close to two months ago. I have not had a response from the Minister for Health yet about whether or not that $15 million will be honoured. The neonatal unit is an incredibly important unit in the Flinders Medical Centre. It provides services for not just the local area but right across South Australia. Indeed, when I visited the hospital, it was providing services to country Victorians as well. It is a really important service that allows people who have unfortunately had a premature baby to spend time with their baby and get the best possible medical attention, and there is also space for families to ensure that that connection continues. So it is really, really concerning that I have not had an answer yet from the Minister for Health, and I really hope that this funding does not end up being ripped away in the same way that the government has ripped away the $100 million from the Royal Victorian Eye and Ear Hospital.

But, of course, it is not just the things that they have already cut; the government have flagged that they will cut or abolish many, many things. Their 'commission of cuts' is already affecting agencies and their abilities to deliver vital programs. Who would have thought that the government's commission of cuts would look at targeting funding to promote organ and tissue donation? But hundreds of community groups are now being left in the dark about whether their funding applications will be honoured—especially with DonateLife Week coming up in February. It is concerning that this funding has been frozen, and there seems to be absolutely no answer about what will happen and when this money will be released.

Money in Health Workforce Australia has also been frozen. This will affect students because the money, especially as part of the clinical placements program, goes towards supporting universities and health services to provide clinical placements for students. There is no doubt that we need to make sure we are providing that opportunity for placements for students to get the experience so that they can enter our workforce. Developing our health workforce is one of the critical challenges into the future. The doctors, the nurses and the allied health workers are all critically important. Freezing money for clinical placements is very concerning as we approach the new academic year. How will we be able to do this?

As I stated earlier, there are real concerns about cuts in the Health portfolio. Only the Labor Party has a good track record in investing in and reforming our healthcare sector. That is why we continued to invest in health care. That is why the amendment that the opposition has put forward is so critically important. It ensures that the money that is part of this saving cannot be cut and put somewhere else or be stashed in the government coffers. It says that it is important that it is reinvested into health and ensures that we can slow the cuts that continue to come from this government. Hopefully the reinvestment of this money, through the opposition's amendment, will ensure that the government will continue to spend in Health. I commend the opposition's amendment to the House and hope that the House adopts it.

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