Wednesday, 18 March 2026

 Georgie CROZIER (Southern Metropolitan) (18:26): (2425) My adjournment matter this evening is for the attention of the Minister for Health, and the action I seek is for the minister to advise the Alexandra community and wider Murrindindi shire as to who will now lead the merger of Alexandra and Eastern Health services. Last November the local community was blindsided by the announcement that this merger was even being considered by the boards. Community consultation was brief, was far from transparent and, from my understanding, became a little ugly. These two health services are like chalk and cheese. Alexandra District Health is a single-site rural health service serving one shire, an important player in the wider area’s economy with about 120 staff. That is in contrast to Eastern Health, which is a multihospital metropolitan system covering Melbourne’s entire east, with more than 1500 beds and thousands of staff. Understandably, many within the Alexandra community were very fearful about the takeover. They did not see this as a merger; they saw it, as I mentioned, as a takeover – a 25-bed rural service swallowed up by a 1500-bed metropolitan giant. Despite those concerns, in early February both the Alexandra District Health and Eastern Health boards formally recommended a voluntary amalgamation. The selling point for much of this was improved services and greater efficiencies. While Alexandra District Health may have its financial challenges, it is nothing like the massive budget deficit within Eastern Health.

And Eastern Health is not the only one – there are many services with massive budgetary problems. Just last week in the lower house the minister was questioned over the decision to change the orthopaedic and urology services from Maroondah and Box Hill hospitals. In the usual ministerial bluster, she championed Labor’s investment in health – another fallacy – pounding the desk that Labor does not cut frontline services. No-one in Alexandra needing those services and living in the hope that the merger would bring about improved access to these specialities would have been happy with that throwaway line. Cutting orthopaedics and urology seems like cutting frontline health services to everyone but the hapless Minister for Health.

Amid the blindsiding amalgamation and cuts to health services in the region, we now learn that the respective CEOs of both health services are on their way out the door. It seems that the architects of this hostile takeover have stepped aside. The CEO of Alexandra Hospital is retiring next month, and the CEO of Eastern Health has already departed – God knows where he is. Many in the Alexandra community were unaware of the leadership change at Eastern Health and want to know who will be leading them through this period of change and uncertainty. This is a deeply sensitive and highly contentious proposal. News like this only adds to the anxiety of a community already shaken by the Longwood fires, and they deserve to be treated with respect and to understand who will be leading this now newly formed health service.