Kat THEOPHANOUS (Northcote) (14:51): I rise to contribute to the debate on the Drugs, Poisons and Controlled Substances Amendment (Paramedic Practitioners) Bill 2024. This bill represents a landmark moment in the evolution of health care in Victoria. It establishes paramedic practitioners, a pioneering initiative that positions Victoria as the first jurisdiction in Australia to implement this model of care. This is a historic milestone for Victoria. Before the last election the Allan Labor government committed to bringing paramedic practitioners to Victoria, promising to put 25 practitioners on the road in rural and regional areas by 2026. Today we are taking a decisive step forward in fulfilling that promise.

This bill will enable paramedic practitioners to work autonomously to provide urgent care in the field without needing to transport patients to emergency departments. Once graduated, they will be able to treat conditions that commonly see people visit hospitals, including urinary catheter care, wound care and closure, minor infections, dislocations and fractures. This will have profound impacts, including reducing pressure on our emergency departments, improving access to primary and urgent care and supporting better health outcomes for rural and regional Victorians. It is a practical step. It is step that makes sense, and it goes to our Labor government’s vision for the future for health care in our state.

In order to make this vision a reality the 2023–24 budget allocated $20.1 million to establish this initiative. We have also worked closely with Monash University to launch Australia’s first-ever paramedic practitioners masters degree, ensuring these practitioners are equipped with the skills and confidence to operate independently. The program welcomed its inaugural cohort of 30 students this year, with a second intake set to begin early next year. Scholarships have also been made available to support students, reflecting our commitment to building a highly skilled and diverse workforce that reflects the Victorian community.

We know that Victoria is home to world-class health workers. They are leaders, incredibly skilled, agile and willing to take on more challenging roles. They deserve the opportunity to utilise their full capabilities to improve people’s access to health care, particularly for our rural and regional communities. Paramedics are amazing. In the most complex of situations they pull off some superhuman stuff with an enormous amount of dedication, compassion and resilience. One of my husband’s and my closest family friends, indeed he was our best man, worked as a paramedic in Victoria for many years, and he and his partner continue to work in Victoria’s healthcare system. We have heard many stories from James about his time on the road and the many and varied situations he has been thrown into. The adrenaline in those situations is immense, sometimes ending in elation and sometimes in heartbreak.

What is clear is that paramedics in Victoria are driven by a commitment to deliver the very best patient-centred care, and this bill gives them the opportunity to do even more. It allows paramedic practitioners to provide more comprehensive support and care to patients, reducing demand on hospital emergency departments and creating more opportunities for home visits and treatment of housebound patients. This initiative draws on successful international models in countries such as the UK, Canada and the Netherlands. It reflects our government’s belief that healthcare workers, including nurses, midwives and paramedics, should be empowered to work to their full scope of practice. We have already taken steps to support endorsed midwives to work to their full scope of practice by repealing an outdated list which limited their prescribing powers. By doing this we have enabled endorsed midwives to finally prescribe for conditions commonly experienced during pregnancy and labour – such as heartburn and acid reflux – and pain relief without needing to go to a GP.

This reform also improves access to medical abortion by removing barriers to prescribing, making it safer and easier for women, including in rural and regional areas of Victoria, to access abortion services closer to home, which is an essential part of the work that the Minister for Health and I are undertaking as part of our women’s health reforms in Victoria.

To the specifics of the bill, we are legislating to define a paramedic practitioner as a registered paramedic who has completed postgraduate studies and meets the required experience criteria. It gives them equivalent authority to nurse practitioners, allowing them to prescribe medications, administer treatment and access the SafeScript database to ensure safe prescribing practices.

The Allan Labor government has consistently demonstrated its unwavering support for our hardworking paramedics. Since coming into office we have invested over $2 billion in ambulance services, growing Ambulance Victoria’s on-road workforce by more than 50 per cent, adding over 2200 paramedics to our roads since the Liberals were last in office. In the past three years alone we have recruited over 1300 paramedics to meet surging demand, which is now 30 per cent higher than prepandemic levels. In fact Victoria now has more registered paramedics than any other jurisdiction. This is in stark contrast to when the Liberals were in government, with Victoria’s response times the worst across mainland Australia. Victorians remember the chaos the health system experienced under the previous Liberal government. Response times were declining year-on-year, and in the face of this reality they chose to stop releasing the data altogether. Victorians knew things were going terribly wrong when they chose to hide the evidence. Their contempt for paramedics was exemplified by the shameful behaviour of the then health minister, who accused paramedics of staging photos and referring to them as ‘militant’ and ‘thugs’. Demonising this critical workforce is and was unfathomable, and Victorians would not stand for it. It took us two years to clean up the mess that they left, but we ended their war on the paramedics and ambulance response times improved to 80 per cent of code 1 cases responded to in 15 minutes. It shows how our continuous investments in this critical workforce have led to better tangible outcomes for all Victorians.

Today our paramedics are dealing with record demand, but we remain on the right path with our record investments, with the last quarter showing a 16-second improvement on the previous quarter. To help paramedics respond to increasing demand this government has doubled the capacity of the Victorian Virtual Emergency Department, which has now treated over 400,000 patients with an 85 per cent diversion rate. My own family has used this service, and I can tell you that it is absolutely brilliant. Being able to receive care at home virtually and freeing up ambulances for critical cases is another example of an initiative that just makes good policy sense.

We have also invested in medium-acuity transport services and expanded secondary triage, which redirects 20 per cent of 000 calls to alternative care pathways, relieving pressure on emergency departments, and we are focused on delivering state-of-the-art facilities for paramedics. Since 2015, we have invested $279 million in ambulance infrastructure, delivering 51 new ambulance stations across the state. These facilities provide paramedics with better working conditions and ensure emergency care is available to all Victorians.

We have also reached an in-principle agreement with paramedics to maintain their status as amongst the highest paid in Australia, while introducing new measures like an end-of-shift management procedure to help paramedics get home sooner and safer. This is an election commitment we are proud to be delivering. At the last election we stood alongside paramedics to announce the vision.

We also pledged to hire 40 additional mobile intensive care paramedics and create Australia’s first centre of excellence in paramedicine in partnership with Victoria University. This $20 million facility will train up to 1500 paramedic students annually, using cutting-edge simulation equipment to deliver the highest quality education for both undergraduate students and paramedic practitioners.

We acknowledge that the challenges facing our health care system are large, but we approach these challenges in partnership and collaboration. Unlike those opposite, who left paramedics demoralised and under-resourced, this government has consistently listened to and invested in and elevated our healthcare workforce. I want to thank the hardworking paramedics across Victoria. Every day they are out working in our communities, saving lives, supporting Victorians in some of their most vulnerable and frightening moments and at times confronting devastating scenes. It is challenging work, it is critical work, and we are so grateful to them for their support on the front lines.

Along with paramedics, I want to thank our whole health workforce, many of whom call Northcote home, as we have a very large representation of healthcare workers living in our community. These workers have been going above and beyond, particularly since the pandemic – our nurses, clerks, cleaners, kitchen staff, doctors and everyone who keeps our health systems up and running. They are the best of us, and we thank them.

I also commend the Minister for Health, who has not wasted a single moment in moving to implement significant reform in our health system. It is an honour to work as her Parliamentary Secretary for Women’s Health on the critical work to ensure Victorian women and girls are treated with dignity and respect and have their health issues recognised, understood, diagnosed and treated.

This bill is yet another example of the Labor government delivering real action, and it shows what can be achieved when we respect, value and invest in our healthcare professionals. I look forward to seeing us empower paramedic practitioners to improve healthcare delivery and build a system that is more accessible and responsive for Victorians. I commend the bill to the house.