Ms THEOPHANOUS (Northcote): I rise with pleasure to speak in support of a bill that builds on our government’s strong track record of investment in our public healthcare system. Nurses and midwives are with us for some of the most incredible movements of our lives as well as some of the most difficult. They are those intense moments of our lives that when the dust settles often transform into a blur, but what happens in those moments can be life defining.
Nothing has underscored that more than recent months in which we have seen the world surge towards 500 000 coronavirus deaths. We have seen and heard the devastating choices and the weight of responsibility that healthcare workers around the world have had to face. We have seen and heard tales of courage and compassion amidst heartbreak and loss. Here in Australia, particularly thanks to the leadership of the Premier and our chief health officer, we have avoided much of the cruelty of this virus, and I do not have any hesitation in saying that there is no place that I would rather be or would rather my family were than right here in Victoria.
But make no mistake, our ability to be nimble in this crisis is no accident. Having a world-class healthcare system is no accident. The provision of quality health care is a choice. Here in Australia and in Victoria, across our history we have had strong Labor governments that have pushed back against conservative economic policy aimed at ripping apart health funding. Instead of cutting funding, Labor has chosen Medicare, we chose to invest in hospitals, we chose to support our health workforce. When those opposite were in government they sought to systematically gouge funds from public health and waged industrial war on our nurses. We will not forget the protracted and delayed negotiations aimed at removing ratios from enterprise agreements.
And then there are the Greens. I must acknowledge the member for Brunswick’s contribution. He clearly speaks from the heart on this and from experience. It is a shame that his party do not really find this particular topic to be worthy of any real concerted interest, because health funding is complex, it does not fit neatly into a marketing campaign or a petition, it is a bit too hard and it is not that fashionable. But choices matter. And it is particularly relevant right now as we all bear witness to what could have been had Labor governments not fought the fight for health care in this nation.
I want to take a moment now to acknowledge the amazing nurses and midwives that we have here in Victoria and the many that live in my community. Nurses and midwives are absolute heroes within our community. They are with us during our most vulnerable moments, caring for us with compassion, with resilience, with dedication, with those steady hands. And it is fortuitous that this bill comes during the World Health Organization’s International Year of the Nurse and the Midwife, an opportunity to acknowledge the contributions and hard work of our nurses and midwives every day. To each and every one of you, I say thank you.
It is vital that we go beyond expressing our thanks because nurses and midwives, as heroic as they are, are ultimately only human too. They are on the front line of our healthcare system, and that front line can be confronting, it can be exhausting and at times it can be dangerous. That is why in 2015 this government enshrined nurse- and midwife-to-patient ratios into law, and that is why in 2019 we passed amendments to strengthen those ratios. We removed the outdated rounding method and eased the pressure on the many nurses and midwives who had been struggling under immense workloads. This bill goes even further in our mission to improve outcomes for nurses, midwives and the patients in their care. It improves staffing ratios in residential aged care and rehabilitation wards. It provides for an additional in-charge nurse or midwife, particularly on night shifts and in surgical wards, birthing suites and postnatal wards. It allows for additional staff in smaller regional hospitals, acknowledging the increasing complexity they face in coordinating different services.
We know that nurse- and midwife-to-patient ratios are critical for patient outcomes. Our nurses tell us so, our midwives tell us so and Australian and international research tells us so. Lower staff-to-patient ratios have been shown to lower mortality rates and hospital readmissions. They shorten the length of stay in hospital and improve patient and nurse satisfaction. In short, they save lives. And that is why we have made it law. With almost 5 per cent of working residents in my electorate employed in hospitals—the largest proportion of workers in any one industry—I have had many conversations with local nurses and health professionals. These are passionate people who love their job and who give their all to their job, but they have felt the burnout and they have felt the increasing workloads.
This bill will deliver another 500 nurses and midwives into the public health system on top of the 600 we have already funded, taking us to a total of 1100 extra nurses and midwives. That is hundreds of thousands of hours of increased patient care, and we are not stopping there. This bill is backed up by our $50 million Nursing and Midwifery Workforce Development Fund, which is creating training opportunities and providing scholarships for further training to help fill the new positions these changes are creating. Already attracting record numbers of applicants from across the state, the fund is also expanding nurse and midwife graduate programs. This includes a statewide enrolled nurse graduate program, which will employ over 400 nurses over the next four years, with 100 of these positions available to TAFE graduates. The diploma of nursing is one of the most popular priority courses offered under our free TAFE program, which is already helping thousands of young people get the skills they need, tuition free, to succeed in the workforce. Our graduate program means even more Victorians will be able to study a diploma of nursing and start working as soon as they graduate.
We will continue to deliver a public health system that leads the nation, and we will continue to strive for an even better system because that is what matters to Victorians. Alongside these legislative reforms we have invested an unprecedented $7 billion in health infrastructure since 2014. It is the largest building program for Victorian health in our history. Residents in the north have been pleased to see expansions underway at the Northern Hospital and the Royal Children’s Hospital and of course our plan for new mental health crisis hubs at St Vincent’s and Royal Melbourne hospitals.
I also wanted to acknowledge the changes in this bill to the Child Wellbeing and Safety Act 2005, which protects the high quality of our maternal and child health services. Our MCH nurses play such a central role in promoting the health and development of children and their families. I know that when I first had my daughter, being thrown into parenthood was an absolute whirlwind. Everything was a huge learning curve and I had a million questions. My MCH nurses were the point of call for me—checking in, giving advice, giving reassurance, pointing me in the right direction. Victoria is the only state in the country that requires MCH nurses to be triple qualified: registered as a nurse, as a midwife and to have a postgraduate MCH nursing qualification. We want to keep it this way, so this legislation preserves the requirement for high-level education for our MCH nurses.
It would be remiss of me not to mention the critical role our MCH nurses play in identifying cases of family violence. As we know, the risk to women of being attacked by a violent partner is greatly exacerbated after the birth of a child. In some cases the only appointment the woman is allowed to have alone outside of her home is the one that she has with her MCH nurse. This is a critical interface, and we cannot underestimate how important it is in our efforts to get support to women in need.
There are so many aspects of this bill that are good for Victorians, and my colleagues have canvassed a great many of them. The crux of it is very simple: when nursing and midwife staffing levels increase, the workforce is more resilient and patient outcomes are better. So for that reason I commend the bill to the house.
