Lisa Chesters (Bendigo, Australian Labor Party) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

After COVID hit, it took the government a few months, but after a while they did set up a respiratory clinic in my electorate of Bendigo. The respiratory clinic in Spring Gully was opened in April last year. Since then, this small clinic has worked hard in partnership with many other health providers and Bendigo Health in my electorate. As of 21 October, they had administered over 15,000 doses of vaccine to people in the community. Within that group, 6,600 people have had both doses at the clinic. They're also a testing site, having administered over 13,000 tests as of 31 October.

As I stand here, the figures released today show that 80 per cent of people in my electorate are double-vaxxed, which is a phenomenal effort, and well over 95 per cent of people are single-dosed. Just imagine where we would be if we had had vaccines earlier. Clinics like this could have got our community vaxxed that bit earlier. People in my community would not currently be in hospital, suffering from COVID-19. Businesses would not currently be closed and people would not be at home isolating if this government had just got the rollout happening earlier.

I want to thank the people of Bendigo for getting vaccinated and I thank the hardworking health professionals, particularly the people I met at the Bendigo Respiratory Clinic.