Ms THEOPHANOUS (Northcote): I rise to speak in support of the Public Health and Wellbeing Amendment Bill 2022, and I will see how much time I have got left—30 seconds. Of course public health has never been more important than over the last few years. There is no doubt that the impact and scope of the pandemic has been immensely challenging. It has highlighted the embedded vulnerabilities in our society and put all of our systems to the test. While COVID is still with us, we are now seeing hospitalisation rates fall, vaccination rates rise and our economy reopening. None of these outcomes would be possible were it not for our strong public health system.
Ms THEOPHANOUS (Northcote) (18:01): I rise to speak again in support of the Public Health and Wellbeing Amendment Bill 2022 and to finish my contribution from earlier. As I was saying earlier, COVID is still with this, but we are now seeing hospitalisation rates fall, vaccinations rates rise and our economy reopening. None of these outcomes would be possible were it not for our strong public health system, a system in which this Labor government has continually and dramatically invested since day one.
But there have also been some lessons learned through this pandemic. As we have confronted a completely unknown set of circumstances with the worldwide spread of an infectious and deadly disease every country, every level of government, has learned lessons. It is now critical that we take these lessons and not only continue our economic, social and physical recovery but also deliver improvements. This includes a more robust and resilient public health system—one that is more prepared than ever to protect public health and face the challenges of the future. That is what this bill does with various amendments, including to the way we collect pathology testing data so that we can better achieve an in-depth analysis of disease epidemiology profiles and patterns.
In the Northcote electorate we have a unique connection to the study and treatment of infectious diseases. The Fairfield Infectious Diseases Hospital was one of the most important hubs of clinical care and virology expertise in our state before it was closed by the Liberal-National Kennett government in 1996. For a little history, this hospital had its beginnings at the start of the 19th century, led by the dire need to gain a more sophisticated understanding of conditions like syphilis, smallpox, measles, scarlet fever, whooping cough and diphtheria, which were prevalent across Melbourne in the late 1800s. Tragically, children were amongst the most vulnerable to these diseases, and I want to read out a poem which was actually used in the campaign to establish the hospital in Fairfield, where they wanted a fever hospital. The words underscore the trauma of these types of diseases for children, and they read:
Babies distraught and delirious with pain,
Asking in whispers, for just a cool pillow,
Asking for help—shall they ask in vain?
Finally, after years and off the back of a huge campaign—and with the help of Queen Victoria, indeed—in 1904 the Queen’s Memorial Infectious Diseases Hospital was opened in Yarra Bend in Fairfield. In the decades that followed when epidemics came in waves of diphtheria, scarlet fever, measles, whooping cough and meningitis, the hospital was able to treat over 500 patients every month. It also built up incredibly valuable expertise and research capacity, gaining international recognition for its work on infectious diseases and in particular HIV. By the late 1980s the hospital was planning a second and a third ward to house the growing number of HIV patients. It was known for its non-stigmatising care, in contrast to the awful homophobia and panicked judgement that so many patients experienced at the time.
Ultimately, after an immense campaign to try and save it, the fight was lost and the Fairfield Infectious Diseases Hospital was closed in 1996 by the Kennett government. The gap that it left in our local public health services and the infrastructure for health in the inner north has been acutely felt over the last couple of years. Thankfully plans are coming together for a new $650 million institute for infectious diseases in Parkville, a project to safeguard our future, a project only Labor can and will deliver. I reflect on these historic events because I want to emphasise the importance of building capacity within our health system, which this bill goes directly to doing.
My community have warmly welcomed our government’s rapid and unprecedented investment in health and wellbeing services across the state in recent terms of government, but there is still more to do to improve our public health system, and one of the fundamental elements of our health system brought to the fore during the pandemic was our testing and pathology system as well as the critical importance of testing result data. During the height of the pandemic both the negative and positive test data became critical for immediate contact tracing as well as information about how and where this virus was spreading and its transmission patterns. This testing data helped us to save lives ultimately and protect the health of Victorians. But COVID is not the only infectious disease which impacts Victorians, and we now have an opportunity to improve the way that we test, analyse, manage and control these public health risks more effectively. This is achieved in a number of ways in this bill.
First, the bill amends and improves the notification process whereby pathology services and labs are required to notify the Department of Health of test results indicating that a person has one of 79 notifiable diseases. This change will expand the data that is collected and notified to the department, including demographic information like age, sex and postcode as well as negative results. Notification provides an early warning system to our public health system of our health risks, and it helps identify emerging trends and informs measures to control, prevent and minimise the spread of diseases. By improving the quality and scope of the data available to us we can improve our knowledge and response strategies for outbreaks of infection, and by knowing the level of testing within our community we can also nuance our public health education and awareness campaigns. Age, sex and demographic information will allow for better targeting and response in our prevention and management efforts. As is always the case when we talk about the collection of personal and health information, balancing privacy considerations is key. Where possible the data will be de-identified and aggregated.
We are also improving the way we analyse pathology samples to ensure our public health responses are as rapid and appropriate as possible. Currently only specified labs in Victoria can perform certain further testing on samples to provide greater clarity around and typing and sub-classification of diseases and microorganisms. Many labs, therefore, already voluntarily send samples for further analysis. This bill will provide for the regulatory framework to give labs and pathology services the ability to perform further testing or transfer to another site if they are not able to do it themselves, and this will substantially improve our ability to undertake further analysis and typing of samples quickly, which means it will improve our ability to manage and control the spread of infectious diseases in our hospitals.
I am conscious of the time. There are a few other aspects of the bill I wanted to cover. I will not get to them all, but because of the history of the Fairfield Infectious Diseases Hospital I want to comment on the removal of historic references to HIV and hepatitis C from this act. These references are stigmatising and unnecessary, and this government has consistently made it clear that stigma and discrimination against people with HIV is not acceptable. One of the very first bills that I spoke on in this Parliament was a public health and wellbeing amendment bill which addressed ongoing structural discrimination and stigma around testing. The Northcote electorate is home to a very significant LGBTI community, and the stigma associated with HIV is something which has impacted the LGBTI community in a very deep and quite harrowing way.
Every Victorian deserves to receive health advice and support free from stigma and discrimination, and I for one am proud to see that work continuing in this bill and to be part of that work today. The references being removed from the act today long pre-date modern treatments. For all of the reasons I have outlined, I commend the bill to the house.
