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Tuesday 28 July 2026
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Shooting for the stars THE Frankston Blues Under 14 Boys will fly to Perth in September to compete at the 2026 Australian Under-14 Club Championships, after finishing the 2026 National Junior Classic Championship undefeated and winning the Eltham Dandenong Basketball Tournament this season. The Australian Under-14 Club Championships, co-hosted by Basketball Australia and the Willetton Basketball Association, runs from 25 September to 3 October in Willetton, Western Australia. See story page 3. Pictures: Gary Sissons
Allied health professionals strike at Frankston Hospital Sarah Halfpenny sarah@baysidenews.com.au HUNDREDS of allied health professionals – including physiotherapists, occupational therapists, speech pathologists, radiographers, sonographers, social workers and podiatrists – walked off the job for three hours at Peninsula University Hospital on Thursday 23 July, escalating a pay
dispute with the Allan Government. Members of the Victorian Allied Health Professionals Association (VAHPA) rallied on the street outside the Frankston hospital from 2.15pm. VAHPA has lodged a wages claim of 36 %, well above the government’s latest offer of between 19 and 21 %. VAHPA executive officer, Andrew Hewat, said the union had to balance the need for industrial action against
its members’ instincts as carers. “Our members are carers by nature, so they don’t want to actually put the patients out, and they definitely don’t want to put the patients at risk,” said Hewat. “But at the same time, we’re left with no alternative but to take industrial action to send the message to the government that we need to be respected and we need a genuine offer
to get a decent outcome.” Hewat said workload pressures were compounding the dispute. “We’re suffering from huge burnout issues in terms of the volume of work and the complexity of the work keeps increasing, and the staffing levels just don’t match that.” He told The Times that allied health workers were often overlooked despite their roles across the health
system. “We’re almost like this forgotten workforce because we’re so diverse and interspersed throughout different parts of the health services, that we just get forgotten and taken for granted, and the industrial action is an opportunity for our members to highlight how important they are,” said Hewat. Continued page 2