Bendigo stroke victims and their families fear they will lose vital support if the incoming state government doesn't fund the Victorian Stroke Association's support centres.
The Bendigo support centre and its lead organisation, the Stroke Association of Victoria, are asking how they can run a pilot program until October 2023 when the funding dries up four months earlier, in June.
They also want a commitment for funding after October 2023.
The Bendigo branch is one of five across the state preparing to close in June next year.
Staff in Bendigo have already been offered redundancy packages, potentially leaving their 100 members without co-ordinators.
Stroke victim Wayne Porthouse said his calls and letters to MPs Jacinta Allan and Mary-Anne Thomas had so far gone unanswered.
He said the decision to stop funding for the state's regional Victorian centres left stroke victims in dire straits.
"I had my stroke; I can't eat, I can't drink," he said.
"I'm on a peg and I've been like that for four years.
He said "no one wants to know you" when you have a stroke.
"This facility virtually saved my life," he said.
"Now going around the table and talking to people who have had a stroke, I'm appealing to the minister to turn this decision over."
Deadly condition
Stroke kills about 2,250 people in Victoria each year.
The Stroke Foundation said 3,204 people in the federal Bendigo electorate lived with stroke and about 200 people would have a stroke this year.
It said 27 per cent of Bendigo's population was living with high blood pressure and 20,000 people were living with high cholesterol.
Stroke victims in Bendigo are now looking for promises from the major parties for more funding for the Victorian Stroke Association after next week's state election.
Funding to continue
The Labor Party in government is in caretaker mode in the lead up to the election and can't make big funding decisions.
Bendigo West MP Maree Edwards said the government was continuing to fund the Bendigo Stroke Support Centre for a pilot program until the end of the financial year next year.
"I have had meetings with the stroke centre support staff and stroke survivors," Ms Edwards said.
"After those meetings, before we went into caretaker mode, I wrote to Mary-Anne Thomas asking for further support for the stroke centre, because it is a very vital service."
She said a review of Victoria's stroke centres would be complete by October 2023.
"We will continue to advocate to make sure the support centre has the financial support they need, to continue the great work that they do," she said.
The group organises rehabilitation sessions and walks to help stroke victims and their families through recovery.
Social connection important
Bendigo resident Linda Rayner had a stroke in March last year when she collapsed and woke up in hospital two weeks later.
Ms Rayner, who lives alone, said the social connection the support centre provided made a difference to her quality of life.
"I'd be just sitting home doing nothing," she said.
"[If it closes] I might as well just give up. Just give up and go. There'll be nothing for me to do or I have to be just sitting at home doing nothing, which I hate."
The Stroke Foundation said it was bleak to hear that the government would stop funding the Stroke Association's centres and said the Victorian government had not funded any of its work for a decade.
