Tuesday, 28 July 2026

 Nick McGOWAN (North-Eastern Metropolitan) (12:28): (1377) My question is to the Minister for Health. Minister, when will the Faraday cage be replaced at Maroondah Hospital?

 Harriet SHING (Eastern Victoria – Minister for Ambulance Services, Minister for Health, Minister for Water) (12:28): Thank you, Mr McGowan, and thank you for that question. I just want to perhaps take people through the question you have asked as it relates to the Faraday cage, because –

Nick McGowan interjected.

Harriet SHING: Mr McGowan, image quality – and I will perhaps give some context for other people in the chamber – is something which is secured at its highest by the way in which we can have MRI services operating. Eastern Health, in relation to the MRI facility at the Maroondah Hospital, has undertaken a really significant investigation on an intermittent image artefact that was affecting the MRI service. What that translates to is a degradation of the MRI room’s radio frequency shield; that is the Faraday cage, just for anybody else who is interested in what this means. That degradation was in fact the cause of the issue. But I also want to be really clear: the MRI scanner is actually continuing to operate normally, so I want to allay any concerns that might be promulgated by people for perhaps improper purposes. Eastern Health has been very clear: patient safety has not been compromised. The artefact is actually predictable. We can readily identify through established clinical review processes what those impacts look like, and that includes review by MRI technologists and reporting radiologists. The vast majority of scans have been unaffected. To date, five women required repeat breast imaging because the image quality was not considered adequate for diagnosis. But rescans have occurred at Box Hill Hospital, and all scans that were not recalled were considered diagnostically –

Nick McGowan: On a point of order, President, on relevance, the question was very, very limited. The question was simply: when will the cage be replaced? I appreciate the minister’s background, but I do not need the background. What the people of Maroondah and what the people of Ringwood, Blackburn and Vermont need is a working Faraday cage. We have asked when it will be replaced.

The PRESIDENT: I believe the minister has been relevant to the question.

Harriet SHING: Well, you say you do not need background, Mr McGowan, but you have emailed indicating that several women had been turned away from Maroondah Hospital. The Department of Health investigated those claims, and so far they have not been able to find any evidence to support that claim. I understand your concern around this being a known issue in early 2025. Again, Eastern Health has advised that it has no visibility of concerns having been raised in relation to this matter at that time and that once concerns were raised, they were responded to swiftly and there was an investigation that commenced.

Eastern Health is progressing at pace replacement plans for the Faraday cage. It is not an uncomplicated process, Mr McGowan, as I would hope you would respect, whilst also maintaining continuity of the MRI processes that are being undertaken. That includes establishing alternate access arrangements for patients during that remediation period, and the department will continue to monitor Eastern Health’s progress toward remediation of that office.

 Nick McGOWAN (North-Eastern Metropolitan) (12:32): Minister, that really is quite breathtaking and very sad for the people of my community, because if you cannot answer the basic question of when a simple Faraday cage will be replaced –

Harriet Shing interjected.

Nick McGOWAN: It is a simple question. On 28 January 2026 the test engineer David Burgess from Faraday Pty Ltd conducted exhaustive tests. Laugh all you want, Minister, but this is an engineer who conducted exhaustive tests –

A member interjected.

Nick McGOWAN: she was laughing – at Maroondah Hospital on the Faraday cage. Do you know, Minister, that on 28 January 2026 that cage failed 69 of its 72 tests? To stand in this place and tell this place that Eastern Health did not know that that cage was failing and that it produced images of lesser quality is an outright lie. It is an absolute lie, and it does no service to this place, nor to Eastern Health, who should be replacing it immediately. Minister, when will you replace not only the Faraday cage but also the MRI, which is at the end of its life? It either needs magnets replaced or the machine – you cannot even buy it online anymore.

 Harriet SHING (Eastern Victoria – Minister for Ambulance Services, Minister for Health, Minister for Water) (12:33): Thanks, Mr McGowan. Well, we know who will not be investing in medical and health infrastructure, and that is you lot. As I said earlier –

Renee Heath: On a point of order, President, question time is not an opportunity for the minister to attack the opposition, and I ask her to answer the question.

The PRESIDENT: My crystal ball tells me she was about to address the question.

Harriet SHING: You could not help yourself in the preamble, Mr McGowan. Just to be really clear: when you refer to the repair of a Faraday cage as a simple process, you fundamentally misunderstand the nature of MRI imaging and what needs to be done to understand the impact of scans and of radio technology.

Nick McGowan: On a point of order, President, the minister has verballed me; I never said it was a simple process. I simply asked the question: when will it be replaced? I never said ‘simple’. It is a simple question without an answer.

The PRESIDENT: There is no point of order.

Harriet SHING: Again, Eastern Health implemented risk controls following confirmation of the issue in February 2026. We have got hundreds of MRIs around the state – hundreds of them – and we want to continue to invest in that technology. It is very hard –

Members interjecting.

Jaclyn Symes: On a point of order, President, whilst I have some respect for Mr McGowan’s passion about issues in his electorate, literally yelling at the minister in such a badgering manner while she is attempting to provide him an answer is very unparliamentary. The minister is attempting to answer his question, and I think he should pay the respect of listening to the answer.

The PRESIDENT: I uphold the point of order.

Nick McGowan: On a point of order, President, if we want to characterise the way in which everyone speaks in this place, the fact that the minister is standing up and we are speaking about 900 breast exams for women over two years, some of which the minister has today conceded they have had to do twice in different procedures, is not a fair point of order.

The PRESIDENT: It is not a point of order. Members that ask a question, if they want to hear the answer, should not repeatedly shout at the minister, and that is the point of order I upheld.

Harriet SHING: Once concerns were raised with the medical imaging program leadership, they began that response to the comprehensive investigation that was kicked off. Now, there was appropriate risk management put in place, and plans are continuing at pace to replace the Faraday cage – no simple exercise, as I am sure you would agree.