My adjournment matter is for the Minister for Health in the other place.
The action that I seek is a written assurance from the minister that the urgent infrastructure upgrades and funding needed for the Alfred hospital, which were widely publicised in the media today, will not impact on services—or worse, cause bed closures—at Sandringham Hospital.
Speaker, as you may know, the Sandringham Hospital operates as part of the Alfred Health network of hospitals that also includes the Alfred and Caulfield hospitals.
As I have said to community members before, the Sandringham Hospital is so much more than bricks and mortar on Bluff Road; it is the caring heart of our community. This is just one of the reasons I was pleased to commit $2.5 million in infrastructure funding to the hospital during the last state campaign.
There have been worrying reports today in the media saying that senior doctors at the Alfred have described Melbourne’s leading trauma centre as ‘falling down’ and in ‘desperate need of a massive overhaul to fix infrastructure’.
Medical professionals themselves are blaming it on a lack of funding and a health system under pressure.
With increased waiting lists, cybersecurity attacks on hospital systems and now urgent infrastructure needs, locals in my electorate of Sandringham are rightly concerned about the state of our health system and are wanting an assurance from the health minister that their local and vital heath services will not be put at risk because of the Andrews Labor government’s lack of capacity to manage the state’s finances.
