State Member for Shepparton Suzanna Sheed is again asking the Victorian Government to fund and build “long-overdue” health facilities for the Goulburn Valley community.
This week Ms Sheed wrote to Victorian Health Minister Martin Foley to highlight the region’s health priorities ahead of the upcoming state budget.
Top of her list was funding for an early parenting centre in Shepparton, and the second stage of Goulburn Valley Health’s redevelopment.
“The establishment of an early parenting centre in Shepparton is long overdue,” Ms Sheed said.
“The Goulburn Valley Health Foundation now has approximately $1.5 million held in trust to contribute towards this important project and the business case is ready to be enacted.”
Shepparton missed out on early parenting centre funding in 2020, when Ballarat, Bendigo, Geelong, Frankston, Casey, Wyndham and Whittlesea were given $123 million, Ms Sheed said.
“It’s a bit like so many things, they get rolled out in major centres but Shepparton often misses out; we’ve had to fight so hard to get so many services that we need,” she said.
In terms of the allocation of government funding, Ms Sheed said marginal seats always did better and seats held by independents attracted more attention.
“Safe seats get ignored and Shepparton had been a safe seat for 40 years until 2014,” she said.
“We’ve had huge investment since then.”
Ms Sheed said new parents in her electorate had little support available locally after they started their families.
“Such a centre would make the world of difference to parents and allow them to adjust to parenthood in the community instead of travelling to Melbourne at such a busy time in their lives,” she said.
Regarding the probability her call would be answered with the required funding, Ms Sheed said it was hard to feel hopeful “because we’ve wanted it for so long and we haven’t had it”.
“But I certainly won’t be giving up hope," she said.
“This particular centre is small in the scheme of things, but life-changing for so many people.”
Turning to stage two of the GV Health hospital redevelopment, Ms Sheed said it was “a substantial project” and that the most badly needed services should be built first.
“Planning has been done to allow for a staged development process, starting with the urgent infrastructure to accommodate sufficient mental health services for our community,” she said.
“In regional areas, where resources are stretched, mental health should be at the forefront of health funding in the 2022-23 state budget.”
Ms Sheed said works could begin straight away to give Shepparton the mental health service it “desperately needs and deserves”.
“These two projects are vital to support our community in the long term but also as we recover and rebuild our lives in the pandemic era,” she said.
A $25 million Clinical Health School to help grow the workforce to meet Shepparton’s healthcare demand is also on Ms Sheed’s list, as is partial Victorian Government funding for the Integrated Cancer Centre.