Zoe McKenzie (Flinders, Liberal Party) Share this | Hansard source

Last week I visited Rosebud Hospital with Felicity Topp, CEO of Peninsula Health, who steps down from this role on Friday, after six years. We wish her all the best; she has been a remarkable leader for our community. On my tour, we were joined by Karly Hudgson, nurse manager; and Sue Gilbert, strident community advocate for the rebuild of the hospital.

Rosebud Hospital sits on Point Nepean Road at what was once the spot of David Cairns's home, Eleanora, a building made of local limestone, which he gifted along with nine acres of land to Melbourne's Alfred Hospital back in 1935. Originally it provided respite for the hospital's metropolitan doctors and nurses, and the current hospital was built there in 1961. Today that hospital is quite elaborate, aged in parts and refurbished in others, with the last additions made 25 years ago. What the hospital lacks in structural excellence however, it makes up for in nurse and patient engagement and enjoyment. The staff love working there, and the patients love being cared for there. The hospital can hold 60 patients, with eight emergency beds. On the day I was there, as it is every day, the hospital was full to the brim.

That is why most patients now, and certainly critical ones, bypass Rosebud Hospital and go straight to Frankston Hospital, which is 45 minutes away and, in the peak of summer, up to two hours way. Five years ago, a master plan funded by the Commonwealth was designed to rebuild Rosebud Hospital and bring it up to 160 beds. Fit-for-purpose buildings and equipment would hopefully have brought back surgery and maternity services to our local area. At the last state election the Andrews-Allan government promised hundreds of millions of dollars for regional hospitals, including $675 million for a new hospital in West Gippsland and $290 million to redevelop and expand the Wonthaggi Hospital. But, when it came to the Mornington Peninsula, there was nothing.

My friend Sam Groth, now the member for Nepean, promised a future coalition government would provide $340 million rebuild the hospital, a promise never matched by the ALP. A local petition that we sponsored together garnered 3,500 signatures, and it now sits with the Victorian parliament—unaddressed. In the absence of action by the Andrews-Allan government, local fundraising has been required to secure upgraded equipment like new beds and wheelchairs. The hospital has been generously supported by the local community, including the Australian Legion of Ex-Servicemen and Women Southern Peninsula Sub-Branch, the Victoria Police Blue Ribbon Foundation and the Rosebud Yacht Club.

Last year the Albanese government ripped $300 million worth of infrastructure funding out of the Mornington Peninsula, and at the time I pleaded with both the infrastructure minister and the health minister to direct some of that money to the Rosebud Hospital. Yet there remains no action on the part of this government or the state Labor government. No minister has come to visit; there are no peeps about future plans—just incompetent silence. The Mornington Peninsula deserves better.

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