Labor pledges hospital waiting list blitz
The ALP announced a plan on Monday to cut hospital waiting lists and ensure more Australians received the essential surgery they required much faster.
As part of Opposition Leader Bill Shorten’s $2.8 billion Better Hospitals Fund, he announced if elected his government would dedicate $250 million to blitz elective surgery waiting lists in public hospitals.
This announcement is in addition to the ALP’s $500 million commitment to slash public hospital waiting lists for cancer patients as part of its Medicare Cancer Plan.
“Procedures such as knee and hip replacements or cataract surgeries aren’t elective – they are essential,” Mr Shorten said in a statement.
“Labor’s $250 million investment could pay for more than 62,000 cataract procedures or 9800 knee replacements or 9400 hip replacements.
“While patients are stuck waiting for essential surgery, Scott Morrison is cutting $2.8 billion from public hospitals so he can pay for handouts to multinationals and the top end of town.”
Are you on a waiting list for cataract surgery, or a hip or knee replacement? Does this announcement make you more likely to vote for the ALP?
A volunteer firefighter battling cancer has confronted Bill Shorten on the campaign trail, asking why he should trust the Opposition Leader’s big promises when he had been let down by Labor in the past.
Robert Gibbs, who is in a wheelchair due to his battle with leukaemia, tackled Mr Shorten at a media conference in the battleground Victorian seat of La Trobe on Monday.
“How are we supposed to believe your potential government, when [Victorian Premier Daniel] Andrews has done nothing but make my life hard and of other people, volunteers, with cancer?” Mr Gibbs said.
“I’ve spent the last four years in and out of hospital – that long that my daughter is worried that is her dad ever going to come home. I have a six-year-old daughter.” The New Daily, Samantha Maiden.
Does anyone recall the attack by labor's Andrews and Shorten on the Volunteer Fire Fighters?