Victorian Premier Daniel Andrews’ final words before he left Shepparton on Tuesday were to Mayor Shane Sali – “seriously, just ring, all right?”
Mr Andrews flew in to visit the Shepparton Incident Control Centre and check in with local emergency services and authorities dealing with the flood.
Shepparton incident controller Ray Jasper briefed Mr Andrews, alongside Emergency Services Minister Jaclyn Symes, Emergency Management Commissioner Andrew Crisp, Cr Sali and state Member for Shepparton Suzanna Sheed.
Cr Sali said Mr Andrews had offered support for whatever was needed in Greater Shepparton.
“We need to make sure that we're not forgotten through this process,” Cr Sali said.
“I — and no doubt our state representative, Suzanna Sheed — will be advocating very hard for that as well, to make sure we get our fair share of recovery funds and resources.”
He urged the community to stay calm and patient, with floodwaters expected to take multiple days to recede.
“The additional rain coming next week by the predictions and what Ray [Jasper] has just re-emphasised there, it’s not going to create more of an issue for us, other than delaying the recovery process,” he said.
Cr Sali said the way the Greater Shepparton community had come together through the flood event was “unbelievable”.
“We've clearly got a significant amount of our community that have been impacted, but there's also a portion that haven't, and they've really stepped up,” he said.
“We put multiple calls out to our community to support with the sandbags and that was amazing — nearly 200,000 sandbags have been done to support community members.
“Now it’s moving into that recovery process. We're getting multiple people call us about, you know, wanting to donate food, volunteer their time; there will be an appropriate channel provided for those community members who can offer that support.”
Sheed’s concerns for Mooroopna
State Member for Shepparton Suzanna Sheed raised concerns about access to healthcare for people in Mooroopna, which has been badly affected by flooding and is cut off from Shepparton.
“There is no doctor that I'm aware of in Mooroopna who is currently functioning,” she said.
“I mentioned this to the Premier and I'm so glad he came today — he said he will have me an extra doctor here by the end of the day.
“We need that doctor to be able to service Mooroopna, whether it's telehealth or face-to-face, the need for that is great and I'm very concerned about that lack of access just to day-to-day medical advice for people. I see that as critical for our community.”
Ms Sheed said she knew one doctor was stranded in his Mooroopna home.
“If we can get him out and over to his practice here in Shepparton, he'll be able to do telehealth, but he's not working yet,” she said.
“But he can't do it all on his own; we need another doctor here to assist him and to get the scripts out to people to get drugs renewed.
“Can you imagine with at least 8000 people in Mooroopna, how many must just be unwell and really want to see a doctor.”