In March 2022, Victoria's elective surgery waitlist included 42,478 patients who had been waiting longer than the clinically recommended timeframe for treatment.
The Victorian Labor Government set a target to treat all of these patients by March 2023, however more than 33 months later, it has been confirmed 338 of these patients are still awaiting surgery.
In May 2024, Labor abandoned their commitment to deliver 240,000 elective surgeries a year, despite Health Minister Mary-Anne Thomas stating "we're going to hit it" and "if we don't achieve that target we'll keep working until we do."
In a blatant attempt to avoid accountability, the Allan Labor Government stripped key financial indicators, including daily cash holdings, from health service annual reports in 2024-25. This followed Victoria's health services suffering a combined operating loss of more than $1 billion in 2023-24.
Following a decade of financial mismanagement under Labor, Victoria's net debt is growing by $1.7 million an hour and is expected to reach a record $192.6 billion by 2028-29.
Leader of the Opposition, Jess Wilson, said: "These vulnerable patients have been forgotten by Labor.
"It's simply unacceptable that hundreds of Victorian patients who were already past their clinically recommended timeframe for treatment in March 2022, remain waiting for surgery to this day.
"Labor's failure to meet their own target and mismanagement of our health system has resulted in hundreds of Victorians languishing on surgery waitlists for years, with their standard of living deteriorating by the day."
Shadow Minister for Health, Georgie Crozier, said: "Labor promised to clear Victoria's elective surgery backlog, but almost three years later hundreds of patients remain untreated.
"These aren't just numbers, but real people kept waiting with their lives on hold because of Labor's mismanagement of our health system.
"Labor cannot manage money, cannot manage our health system and Victorians are paying the price."
