`Victoria is overprepared':
What the Victorian Government said last year.
Arrogant assumptions made by the Victorian Government a year ago have come home to roost.
Nearly 70,000 Victorians, including urgent Category 1 patients, are now waiting for elective surgery despite Victorian Government claims in 2020 that hospitals could cope with Covid patients and all other demands.
In fact, the Government stated it believed Victoria was ‘overprepared’.
The claim was made by the former Victorian Health Minister, Jenny Mikakos, to the Public Accounts and Estimates Committee, PAEC, in May last year.
On 12th May, she backed the Premier’s April 1st $1.9 billion promise of 4000 additional ICU beds being created and discussed the agreement ‘with Victoria’s private hospitals that added over 8500 hospital beds and significant workforce capacity.’
Mrs Mikakos told PAEC, “The additional inpatient and ICU capacity would not only help manage increased demand from the coronavirus pandemic but also ensure Victoria’s hospitals can continue to treat patients with other conditions at the same time.”
Member for Western Victoria, Shadow Assistant Minister for Scrutiny of Government, and recently appointed member of PAEC, Bev McArthur, said the Government - via Mrs Mikakos - clearly lied to PAEC.
“With 70,000 people waiting the elective surgery, the Government via Minister Mikakos, was at best being disingenuous, and at worst, completely wrong,” Mrs McArthur said.
Then Minister Mikakos – a member of the Premier’s State of Emergency ruling Gang of Eight - also made another stunning claim:
“I do not think we have any issues with people perhaps at some point in time saying that Victoria is overprepared. We are better off being overprepared than underprepared…”
By that date, 12 May 2020, already 18 Victorians had died of COVID-19.
Further, Ms Mikakos pronounced to PAEC on that day that additional to the 450 beds that were already in Victoria, “More than 300 ICU and general inpatient beds have already been delivered…”
She went on to say that, as part of the $1.9 billion plan, the “…Government has recently commissioned an additional 700 beds in public hospitals to be delivered by the middle of the year (2020), and this comprises more than half ICU beds…”
“By her account, Victorian should have had 450 ICU beds plus up to another 300 ICU beds by 12 May and another 350 ICU beds by June last year,” Mrs McArthur said.
“But on 12 May, Ms Mikakos could only count 515 ICU beds.
“By her evidence to PAEC on the 11th August, there were still only 515 ICU beds that ‘could be open’.
“Mrs Mikakos also told PAEC across the two hearing dates that ICU beds were being added to at Bendigo Hospital, Baxter House Geelong, Casey Hospital, Shepparton Hospital, Austin Health, Alfred Health, Monash Hospital, Royal Melbourne, Western Health, Cabrini, Mercy.
“She also said further ICU beds were also being added at “…Geelong, Warrnambool, Ballarat, Horsham, Mildura, Bendigo, Shepparton, Albury, Sale and Tralralgon,” Mrs McArthur said.
But the list of hospitals and ready ICU beds contradicts what the current Health Minister, Martin Foley, told the Victorian parliament on 7th September this year.
He said there were only 574 beds available, but via a series of ‘streamed hospitals’ that level could be lifted to “precisely the level …in regard to 4000 should that be needed.”
Minister Foley said “Those specific hospitals include…the Royal Melbourne, the Alfred and Northern Hospital…the Royal Women’s, the Royal Children’s and Monash Hospital, Epping and Bundoora…Goulburn Valley, Barwon, Bendigo and St Vincent’s.”
“But where in those hospitals does he mention the list provided by Mikakos “…to deliver further intensive care beds, including capacity at Geelong, Warrnambool, Ballarat, Horsham, Mildura, Bendigo, Shepparton, Albury, Sale and Traralgon?” Mrs McArthur asked.
“Any wonder there is confusion in their planning, restrictions, mandates and health orders when they clearly don’t understand what they’re doing.
“One Minister says one thing, another Minister says another.
“Minister Foley did not even mention the regional hospitals as part of the scale-up hospitals required to reach the 4000 ICU beds promised,” Mrs McArthur said.
The PAEC hearings also confirm current concerns that the lockdowns were modelled on excessive numbers and did not include modelling on impacts other than health.
On that same May 12 day of evidence to PAEC, Victoria’s Chief Health Officer, Professor Brett Sutton, confirmed that his advice to lockdown was based on modelling that “…was done on some presumptions that had been understood from the outbreak as it occurred in Wuhan initially.”
That modelling was also discussed by the Premier with the media on that day. It was based upon 58,000 cases a day and 537 deaths a day, despite the reality that only 0.04 per cent of those numbers were being realised at the time.
Melbourne now holds the title of being the most locked down city in the world. The state faces burgeoning debt and mental health issues, failed businesses, family breakdowns and loss of freedoms. 123,000 Victorians lost their jobs in September.
Mrs McArthur said that it is unsurprising given Professor Sutton admitted to PAEC on 12 May 2020 that he did not factor in anything other than potential Covid numbers.
When asked in PAEC if he had looked at `other factors’, he said “Not from myself….my office does not play the role of modelling economic consequences.”
“We should all be shocked at this,” Mrs McArthur said.
“A review of his evidence clearly tells us that this modelling was not done – and if it was – it was ignored because the only evidence the Premier has relied on is the `medical evidence’. Professor Sutton clearly says that his advice took in no other impacts.
“On August 11 to PAEC, he also described modelling as “best-guess scenarios”.
“So, it is no surprise to sensible Victorians to have it confirmed that the Victorian Government and its CHO have relied on guesswork to get us through,” Mrs McArthur said.
“Unfortunately, businesses don’t operate on guess work. But they do close down on it.”
Minister Mikakos also advised PAEC on 12 May that an extra 120 paramedics would be employed “…to boost the front line of our coronavirus response and ensure all Victorians get the health care they need when they need it.” The Minister said they would “hit the ground from this month.”
She also discussed $1 billion of promised funding for “885 FTE paramedics and on-road staff” again so that “Victorians get the right emergency care quickly and when they need it.”
“And yet we have ramping at hospitals across the state, the reduction to single man crews and even the Army being asked to drive ambulances,” Mrs McArthur said.
“At what point do ‘Victorians get the right emergency care quickly and when they need it” as the former Minister told PAEC?”
Mrs McArthur said PAEC should have the Health Minister come back to it to do some serious explaining.
“It is evident to all that there are not 4000 ICU beds ready today, the hospital system cannot cope with regular needs or surgeries, private hospital patients are being denied desperately needed elective surgery for which they are insured, ambulances are late to calls and are ramping, the modelling was based on guess work and did not include broader factors such as economic, mental health or educational impacts.
“This is a disgrace and a failure.
“How else can you describe it?” she asked.
“These words to PAEC last year tell us exactly why Victoria has struggled to survive ongoing lockdowns.
“They reveal plenty about the ongoing mentality of the Government, its failure to manage, and its cataclysmic blindness to business or any matter other than ‘medical evidence’.”
The Government and Ministers should be properly scrutinised and held accountable.
Bev McArthur
Shadow Assistant Minister for Scrutiny of Government
Member of the Public Accounts and Estimates Committee, PAEC
21 October 2021