Steph Hodgins-May (Victoria, Australian Greens) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

Six months ago I tabled a petition to save cohealth's community bulk-billing clinics across Victoria. It now has almost 8,000 signatures. That gave Labor, state and federal, six months to understand what these closures would mean for thousands of patients, nurses and doctors. It means six months of anxiety for healthcare workers wondering if they'd still have jobs and six months of uncertainty for patients already struggling to access care. And what has Labor delivered? Another temporary political fix. These clinics were facing closure because Medicare does not properly fund the long, complex appointments that community health relies on. Cohealth supports people living with chronic illness, disability, mental health challenges and housing insecurity—people who need time, continuity and care. Last week's announcements keep clinics in Kensington, Fitzroy and Collingwood open for one more year—just one year. That is not certainty for workers, it is not certainty for patients and it is not the long-term funding stability that community health services have been calling for year after year.

After Labor's last short-term rescue package, the member for Melbourne, Sarah Witty, plastered the community with billboards claiming she had saved cohealth. She saved it from whom exactly? Her own government? As community bulk-billing clinics across the country are shutting their doors to patients who rely on them, that's what we've come to expect: another short-term bandaid fix from this Labor government. Access to health care should not depend on the election cycle. Labor must properly fund bulk-billing for long and complex care and deliver permanent, secure funding for community health. I say to the community: please keep the pressure on. Please keep speaking up, contacting your local MPs and demanding properly funded public health—because we must save cohealth.