MARY-ANNE THOMAS, VICTORIAN HEALTH MINISTER: Well, thank you for joining us today at the Royal Women’s Hospital. I’m delighted to be here with Rebecca White, who’s the Assistant Minister for Women, Health and Aged Care in the Albanese Government, and it’s fantastic to have you here, Rebecca. Rebecca will be making an announcement on behalf of the Commonwealth Government, but I’m delighted that Rebecca is here. When it comes to listening to the patients of Simon Gordon, Rebecca has been there every step of the way, working with me here in Victoria to ensure that we are listening to women and that we are designing a response that meets their needs.
That’s why Rebecca will be announcing the establishment of care navigators through the Primary Health Network system here in Victoria, and I am announcing a complimentary service, which is the establishment of specialist services available specifically for Simon Gordon’s patients in five of our public health services here in Victoria.
Since the revelations were aired on Four Corners, we have been working firstly to hear directly from the women themselves and respond to their needs. And it has been clear and very heart-wrenching that our system has failed these women. It has been difficult to hear this, but the way we can respect their experiences is by doing everything in our power to make changes and to make those changes as quickly as possible. That's why here in Victoria we moved as quickly as we could to set up an advice line through Women's Health Victoria. It's why we worked immediately with RANZCOG in order to review and support them with Safer Care Victoria to assess whether their guidelines for the treatment and care of patients living with endometriosis continue to be fit for purpose. And it is why we are here today. So across five of our health services, women will be able to access the specialist care that they need in order to assess where they're up to and what the state of their condition is, and the care and treatment that they need going forward.
I think one of the hardest things to hear from the women who have been treated so badly and let down by our health system is for them to tell me directly that they don't feel safe to seek care, that they feel that GPs don't want to see them, that they can't access the specialist care that they need. We want to ensure, working with the Commonwealth, that there is no wrong door for these women. And I want to thank Women's Health Victoria – the advice line is a safe place to call. You will be listened to with care and respect, and you will be put in touch with the services that can help you. I'm going to hand over to Rebecca.
REBECCA WHITE, ASSISTANT MINISTER FOR HEALTH AND AGEING: Thanks, Mary-Anne. I just want to thank Mary-Anne for all the work that she's been doing alongside the Premier here in Victoria to understand how we can support in a coordinated way the care that these women deserve and have unfortunately been denied under the care of Simon Gordon.
I am pleased today to announce on behalf of the Commonwealth Government a package of support for women who have been patients of Simon Gordon so that they can access the support they need to navigate the care system here in Victoria, but anywhere in Australia where they may now be living. The Federal Government's initiative is a $7.45 million commitment, and it will do three things. It will fund six care navigators who will be working across each of the primary care networks here in Victoria, to provide free care and guidance to patients of Simon Gordon to be able to navigate and to access the care that they deserve, whether it be through the Victorian Government's services they've established or to access a GP, or through one of the federally funded endo and persistent pelvic pain clinics.
The second thing it will do is to fund the Royal Australian College of Obstetrician Gynaecologists to update the living endo guidelines. So this is a document that was pulled together and updated last year, but there's further work that needs to be undertaken. And in addition to that, we'll support them with our Royal Australian College of GPs to provide education and training for health professionals. So not only are we updating the guidelines, but we're also working for greater adoption and implementation in practice of the guidelines in care.
And the third thing we'll be doing is supporting again the Royal Australian New Zealand College of Obstetrician and Gynaecologists to do further work on the care guidelines for persistent pelvic pain. We know that there's work that we need to do across the multidisciplinary teams that are providing care for women living with endometriosis who are concerned that they may have endometriosis and need a diagnosis. So making sure that we update the care standards for endometriosis and pelvic pain is really critical, because this is something we want to do now to support women who need access to care and guidance who are former patients of Simon Gordon, but also to change the system.
Fundamentally what we know is that we need to respond quickly, and I hope that these care navigators will be in place before the end of this month to be able to support women who are former patients of Simon Gordon to be able to navigate, to find a health professional who can help them. And that will be provided free of any cost to those patients to be able to support them through that navigation journey. And the other thing we need to really focus on doing is making sure this never happens again and this is where the education and training is really vital. And I thank the College of GPs and obstetrician gynaecologists as well for the work they've been doing in collaboration with our government, the Victorian Government, to make sure that we can update the care standards, update the guidelines and update through training and education the care that will be provided right across the country for women who reach out and seek support, to make sure that we are doing better when it comes to supporting women who are needing trusted, professional, evidence-based care and that they're able to access that where they live.
So thank you so much everybody for your work on this project it's been a collaborative effort and it is about coordinating this effort across all tiers of government and making sure that we prioritise the voices of patients who've been brave enough to share with us their stories because without them we wouldn't be standing here today. That's the reality of it. And Louise, thank you for the work that you've done bringing to light the voices of these women because it has given courage for others to speak up and to share their stories and to realise they're not alone. And that has meant that we've been able to make fundamental changes and that is truly a significant thing. It's very sad and devastating that it had to happen in the first place, but our hope and the work that we've been doing is about making sure no more women have to suffer the way that they did under Simon Gordon.
SARAH HAYDEN, FORMER PATIENT: Thank you so much. It's really lovely to be here, to be invited here today to finally, I guess, have a little bit of positive news after what's been a really harrowing six weeks for myself and many other women. This funding is an important and overdue acknowledgement that something has gone very, very wrong for a lot of women. And I'm so thankful that the Labor Government has been able to provide the support that we have been asking for since the news broke six weeks ago.
For so, so many of us, the harm didn't just end with the surgery, it continued in the silence and the confusion and the lack of support and transparency afterwards and the inability to seek the urgent help and support that we needed. There are so many of us who have been trying to get into specialists to seek second opinions, have our case notes reviewed and it has been a very difficult and costly process at a time when women want and deserve to have answers immediately. When so many women are mentally and physically exhausted as well as significantly financially impacted because of what Simon Gordon has done, this is an additional burden that we just did not need.
Care navigation and specialist review is a critical step forward but what women are really asking for now is safe care and independent and transparent investigations and an absolute assurance that this can never again. Today, I'm really thankful for these steps and for listening to those of us who have been asking for this. This is going to make an enormous difference. It's not going to fix what's been done, but what it is, is it's going to give these women somewhere where they feel that they can go to for trust and support and not have to pay for that privilege and to be able to do it in a really quick and timely manner. So thank you again to the Government today. Thank you.
JOURNALIST: So you talk about systemic failure. Why aren't you doing a broader inquiry into why that systemic failure happened?
THOMAS: Well, what we know is that the harm that has been caused to these women has been caused by one practitioner, Simon Gordon, at the Epworth Hospital. Now, the Epworth is undertaking an independent review and we will await the outcomes of that review. As I have talked about though, previously, is the work that we are doing and have been focused on for many years now to create a speak up culture in our healthcare system. What this case has demonstrated is the worst possible outcome when health practitioners, when nurses and other doctors don't feel empowered to speak up.
Now, this happened in a private healthcare system. I think one of the greatest protective factors that exists in our public system is that patients will receive team-based care. That a patient in the public system will have their notes reviewed many times by many different health practitioners and that there will be case conferences and so on. Ensuring we have a speak-up culture in place is important for two key factors. One is that it is absolutely critical for patient safety. But the second is it's absolutely critical to ensure a safe working environment for our healthcare professionals.
JOURNALIST: So just two follow-up questions for now. First of all, Emma herself on social media last night was talking about the fact that patients hadn't been provided terms of reference of this inquiry that Epworth is doing. Why can't Epworth provide that? And will you be asking them to provide patients with terms of reference?
THOMAS: So my understanding is that the Epworth is still working with Women's Health Victoria on the best way to incorporate the lived experience of these women into the inquiry.
JOURNALIST: But why wouldn't they provide the terms of reference? Isn't that just basic sort of transparency?
THOMAS: Well, that is a question for the Epworth. However, my understanding, as I've said, is that the Epworth is working closely with Women's Health Victoria on how to incorporate the voice of patients into the inquiry.
JOURNALIST: You have someone from Safer Care Victoria on that inquiry.
THOMAS: Yes, I do.
JOURNALIST: Will you be speaking to them and saying: can you please provide the terms of reference to these women? Seems pretty transparent and a reasonable question.
THOMAS: Well, I'm very happy to have that conversation with Safer Care Victoria. I suppose the point that I would make here is that I don't expect that the review, to be frank, into what happened at the Epworth is going to be the entire answer here. What we have is an opportunity to look at a number of different factors that led to this failure of care in a private hospital. Certainly, in my conversations with the Epworth, I have suggested that this is an opportunity for them to lead the way in clinical governance and cultural reform in the private healthcare system.