The Nationals will fix Victoria’s healthcare crisis.

 

The Nationals guarantee that we will rebuild Victoria’s healthcare system and deliver overdue support to regional healthcare providers, ensuring that you can get the care you need, when you need it – and to ensure your family, friends and community can too.

 

We will shelve Labor’s $35 billion Cheltenham to Box Hill railway line in Melbourne and invest every available cent into fixing the healthcare crisis. From that $35 billion, 25 percent of available infrastructure funding will go to regional health under our Regional Infrastructure Funding Guarantee.

 

Daniel Andrews has been Premier or health minister for 11 of the last 15 years. Under his watch, the system was unfunded and has crumbled under the strain of the last two years.

 

In 2014, there were 75 rural or regional public hospitals and community-owned hospitals. Today there are only 63. That is a record of Labor cuts to rural and regional health services.

 

The Nationals will invest in regional healthcare with a new $750 million hospital in Mildura, $100 million for an Integrated Cancer Centre and Clinical Health School at Goulburn Valley Health, a new $400 million West Gippsland Hospital, $30 million to build and upgrade facilities in the Wimmera, $300 million to finish Wonthaggi Hospital, and more.

 

The Nationals will also deliver 40,000 new healthcare workers. That’s because we know that, in addition to improved infrastructure, it is essential to have the health care professionals to deliver the care and services we need.

 

Our healthcare professionals have given their all to support Victoria over the last two years. In recognition, and to retain and attract more healthcare workers, we will provide them with additional support such as free public transport.

 

Two million new mental health appointments will be delivered through our Mental Health Workforce Strategy. This will provide more psychologists, psychiatrists, counsellors, other mental health professionals, and a practitioner available in every Victorian school.

 

This is key to delivering every single recommendation of the Royal Commission into Victoria’s Mental Health System and is in stark contrast to Labor’s unacceptable inaction on our mental health workforce.

 

Communities such as Mildura, Shepparton and the Latrobe Valley will benefit from new alcohol & other drug rehabilitation and treatment facilities as part of our package of 180 new beds state-wide. Community grants will also see localised mental health and wellbeing solutions in our communities.

 

To support all Victorians, we will fix the Triple Zero crisis with a $125 million package to deliver the secure funding that Labor has failed to provide to this essential service.

 

Victorians are waiting longer than ever for vital surgery under Labor, and The Nationals will halve the surgery waitlist in our first term by providing 50,000 additional surgeries.

 

The Nationals will also make it easier to start or expand your family with rebates of up to $4,500 for IVF and fertility treatment, and, unlike Labor, we will never suspend critical IVF procedures.

 

Additionally, we will hold a Royal Commission into the handling of the COVID-19 pandemic in Victoria and implement a Future Pandemic Management Plan to ensure that the mistakes of the last two years can never be repeated.

 

This November is a clear choice between a Labor Party that has failed our healthcare system and prioritises an inner-city railway line, or The Nationals and our plan to fix the healthcare crisis.