Tuesday, 12 May 2026

 Georgie CROZIER (Southern Metropolitan) (17:58): (2506) My adjournment matter this evening is for the attention of the Minister for Health. The government, via Safer Care Victoria and the Department of Health, is planning to cut and centralise the oesophageal cancer surgery from Western Health, relocating it to Peter MacCallum Cancer Centre and Barwon Health. I have spoken to a number of surgeons who oppose this move, and they have raised concerns about the rationale behind the decision and the impact it will have on patients, the community and the surgical teams at Western Health.

The recently opened Footscray Hospital is a $1.5 billion facility with 20 operating theatres. The facility offers robotic surgery, 24/7 surgical cover, onsite ICU, oncology and ED access and is accredited for surgical training, amongst other things. Surgery such as oesophagectomy is low volume and high complexity, and it needs appropriate surgical backup, ICU, radiology, oncology – all of these services which Western Health currently provides. Western Health is the only metropolitan provider of oesophageal surgery in the western suburbs, serving a catchment of approximately 1.7 million people. This is Melbourne’s fastest growing corridor and includes some of Victoria’s most disadvantaged communities. There are four surgeons at Western Health with excellent clinical results in this complex, highly specialised surgery. At Barwon Health in Geelong there is only one surgeon and therefore no backup, which potentially puts patients at risk. Removing the service would leave patients who need access to emergency departments without local access, forcing vulnerable patients and their families to travel further and disrupt follow-up care. As one of the doctors said to me, ‘Labor has abandoned the west.’ This decision will have implications for patient access and clinical training pathways, and the very surgeons doing this critical work have not been consulted. So the action I seek from the ministry is for the minister to explain why the government is cutting these critical services and why communities in the western suburbs are being denied local access to vital health care.