The Public Health Association has today launched the Save VicHealth campaign after the VIC Government announced it will effectively shut the doors of the world's first health promotion foundation, VicHealth.
Closing VicHealth will prove a disaster for the health of the people of Victoria and must be reversed, the country's peak body for public health says.
The independence of the agency that has been vital in preventing chronic disease, and was structurally separated from constant pressures of a Department of Health that has been struggling and in atrophy since the COVID pandemic, almost guarantees that prevention efforts will all but disappear.
As belts tighten in government, programs that focus on the essential work of preventing disease become the casualty. Caring for people who are ill will always be an important and immediate priority. It is always urgent. But reducing the commitment to preventing diseases of the future consigns more Victorians to need those urgent, and often costly, health treatment services.
"I make a personal plea to Premier Allan," Public Health Association of Australia CEO, Adj Prof Terry Slevin says.
"Please think beyond the immediate pressures, and do not fold one of the world's leading preventive health agencies into the health department where the enormous pressures to address the urgent will inevitably shrink commitment to the important work of thinking and acting on initiatives to stop Victorians getting sick in the first place."
Destroying VicHealth will also worsen preventive efforts at the national level. That's because VicHealth is part of the Prevention Agency Chief Executive Forum comprising the heads of health promotion agencies from VIC, WA, SA and QLD, whose members share insights and expertise and address local and national challenges.
When hard-headed, economics-focused agencies like the Productivity Commission are making strong evidence-driven recommendations to improve our investment in preventive health, any decision to weaken VicHealth is an ill-informed step backwards for the state, and beyond.
