Joanne Ryan (Lalor, Australian Labor Party) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

I rise to speak about health in the electorate of Lalor. I have spoken about the needs of our local community in terms of health and, in particular, the Werribee Mercy Hospital on several occasions since joining my colleagues in this place. Every time I have risen to speak about the needs of our community in terms of our local hospital I have highlighted the needs and the growing demand. The Mercy Hospital was established to serve a population of around 80,000 but we now have a population of over 200,000 and the hospital desperately needs an upgrade to serve this community. It is with absolute pleasure that I rise tonight to celebrate the fact that federal Labor has a history of supporting Werribee Mercy Hospital. Most recently, there was a contribution of $30 million to build the McAuley Centre, which services the community in subacute beds and has had an enormous impact on the health of subacute patients and resulted in a reduction in the number of patients returning to hospital after they leave the McAuley Centre.

But we have had very good news of late. The Andrews Labor government in Victoria has announced in its budget that $85 million will be spent in the forward estimates to do an extension to the Werribee Mercy Hospital. This is being celebrated in my community because of what it means on the ground. It will add six additional operating theatres and 64 inpatient beds including, most critically, eight beds for a critical care unit. As members of the House would understand, a small country hospital is what we have had serving my community. With this injection of funds, the strategic plan will be implemented in full and we will have ourselves a hospital that will service our community. No longer will ambulances bypass the Werribee Mercy Hospital with critical care patients. No longer will patients already in the hospital who then have a critical incident have to be moved to the emergency department to be monitored for critical care. Those eight critical beds will fill an absolute need in the hospital. They will allow our existing and new operating theatres to ensure that our local hospital serves our entire community.

It is a celebration because it demonstrates that, when it comes to health, Labor both federal and state is prepared to work for and invest in Melbourne's west and take seriously the health needs of our communities. This is such good news in light of the federal government's $50 billion worth of cuts across this country over the next 10 years. In light of that, it is important that our state government has made this commitment to my community and to all of those in the west who will be impacted. A really important point is that, if the Mercy Hospital is servicing needs more generally locally, then those hospitals nearest to us, those hospitals 25 kilometres away, will have less demand put on them. So it is with absolute pleasure that I rise tonight to celebrate the funding for the Mercy Hospital.

I would like to acknowledge Steve Cornelissen and Linda Mellors of Mercy Health. They have been incredibly strong advocates for the hospital and they have also been flexible in responding to community need and community demand. I would like to congratulate Jill Hennessy, the Minister for Health in the Victorian state government. Being the member for Altona and being close to our community, Jill has been very aware of the situation. I would also like to thank Tim Pallas, the Treasurer of the Victorian Labor government. There have been terrific decisions made by state Labor.