Source : the age
The state government has unveiled its final carve-up of Victoria’s health service networks, with some hospitals and regional communities on Friday cautiously welcoming the changes.
Health Minister Mary-Anne Thomas has spent months consulting hospitals, doctors and councils – many of whom were opposed to the networks as initially proposed in May 2024.
Victorian Health Minister Mary-Anne Thomas.Credit: Simon Schluter
The government is creating 12 health networks – each designed to service a population of at least 200,000 – after it ruled out forcibly merging the state’s 76 independent government health services following a community backlash.
Thomas said the new networks would come online on July 1, with planning to commence soon focused on four priority areas: access and flow, workforce, clinical governance and sustainability.
“It’s a program that is designed to ensure that we are improving access to healthcare, particularly for those in rural and regional Victoria,” she said on Friday.
“Every health service will retain its own identity, its own board of management, and so on.
“But of course, we want our health services to work better together, and where it makes sense to look at back-office operations and combine those, then we would welcome that.”
The Hume region in the state’s north-east – which encompasses 13 health services, including Albury Wodonga Health, Goulburn Valley Health and Northeast Health Wangaratta – will be split into two subregions following a community campaign.
A document provided to health service chief executives on Friday morning said Albury Wodonga Health would lead in providing the most complex care for the Ovens Murray subregion, while Goulburn Valley Health in Shepparton would play that role for the Goulburn Valley.
Wodonga Mayor Michael Gobel said he was pleased the government had recognised the Hume region comprised two distinct areas.
“We have different needs and service different communities,” he said.
Gobel said he was seeking more detail from the government on what the changes would mean for service delivery and decision-making for Albury Wodonga Health.
“We want to see that decision-making and service delivery for the Ovens Murray subregion is not just limited to the highest complexity care issues,” he said.
Thomas said Victoria had been delivering the healthcare services for the border town and that demands from the NSW side were factored in when making decisions about the make-up of the local health networks.
In south-east Victoria, the wishes of Gippsland Southern Health Service (GSHS) and Bass Coast Health have been incorporated into the plan, with the services removed from the Gippsland network and included in the Bayside grouping, which includes Alfred Health.
In a joint statement, GSHS chief executive Louise Sparks and board chair Athina Georgiou said service’s hospitals in Leongatha and Korumburra were more closely aligned with the Bayside region.
“We are now connected with a tertiary and metropolitan health service and will be able to work with our existing close regional partners at Bass Coast Health and Kooweerup Regional Health Service to maintain a focus on rural health,” they said.
The government had initially proposed 11 new networks when it released its first plan in August. But the final plan details 12 networks due to the splitting of Barwon South West into two new groupings: Barwon and South West.
Dr Jill Tomlinson, the Victorian president of the Australian Medical Association.Credit: Penny Stephens
Dr Jill Tomlinson, the Victorian president of the Australian Medical Association, said the new arrangements had the potential to deliver improved services and long-term cost savings.
But she warned that implementing these changes would initially require significant financial resources and expertise.
Tomlinson said there was little appetite from health services for formal mergers. “It will be interesting to see whether this remains the case,” she said.
Last month, Alfred Health, Peninsula Health and Kooweerup Regional Health announced they would voluntarily merge. The new health service, which has been given the working title Bayside Health and will take effect from January 1 next year, spans from Melbourne’s south through to the Mornington Peninsula and Gippsland.
To date, no other health services have followed suit.
The Age recently revealed that the Health Department had proposed that the new networks share staff, beds and radiology services.
“Given the tight fiscal environment that health services are operating within, it is critical to maximise the proportion of funding and medical resources that are spent on patient care,” one document said.
Opposition health spokeswoman Georgie Crozier said it was still not known how staff would be shared across networks or where IT services would be based.
“Where is the detail in how this is going to work?” she asked.
Crozier said the changes could compromise care and lead to patients travelling further to access vital health services.
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