Community consultation, while limited to only a 15-day period, has made clear that the majority of concerns regarding the potential amalgamation of Eastern Health (EH) and Alexandra District Health (ADH) lie in the Alexandra community.
The proposed merger leaves the community on the other side of the Black Spur wondering why the consultation period is so short, whether the new entity will have any local influence and why they can’t get any assurances of what health services they will have available to them going forward.
Separate from the official consultation, a community meeting was held at the Alexandra Town Hall on Tuesday 18 November, with both health organisations invited though neither were in attendance.
The Alexandra and District Traders and Tourism Association (ADTTA) has submitted a 37-page document titled ‘Mergers are not magic: What an Alexandra-Eastern Health Merger Requires to Succeed’ regarding the proposal.
ADTTA Secretary Caolán O’Connor said overall, they’ve been hearing lots of concerns around the idea of potential amalgamation, and those concerns broadly fall into three buckets.
“The first one is really around the lack of timing to really do a deep and effective dive into what this would look like, we’re aware that the regional consultation period is 15 days, and many people in the community don’t feel as though that’s adequate to completely understand not just the potential opportunity here, but some of the potential risks as well,” he said.
“The second part of that really is around some sort of feelings of loss of local leadership…you get used to your own doctors, you get used to your own staff, you get used to your own system. but I think to some degree, just this idea of change and being owned by someone else in metro Melbourne can be quite threatening to people.
“The third part is we’ve been through lots of change recently, not long ago, we obviously had a local health network system announced…there’s lots of feelings that we should give that an opportunity to do what its supposed to do.”
As of only 1 July 2025, the East Metro and Murrindindi Local Health Service Network was launched, which created partnerships between Alexandra District Health, Yea and District Memorial Health, Eastern Health, and St. Vincent’s Hospital.
Murrindindi Shire Council Mayor Damien Gallagher spoke at the community meeting and said the amalgamation is not a small matter, and touches on something that is at the heart of the community, their access to health services, to care, and the trust they place in local institutions.
“Let me acknowledge the feelings many of you may have right now; Uncertainty, concern, even frustration, these are valid,” he said.
“When changes of this scale are proposed, especially involving a smaller health service like Alexandra District Health, we need time to digest the information, formulate our questions and have those concerns addressed.
“I must extend credit where it’s due, 17 months ago in this room, and in the days that followed, I pleaded with the Health Minister Mary-Anne Thomas to abandon forced amalgamations of Murrindindi hospitals, and to her credit, nudged by your support and petitions carrying 16,000 signatures, she listened, and the policy was abandoned, instead the Minister encouraged healthcare networks.”
In a statement on the Eastern Health website about the launch of the local health network, it reads that “each health service retains its individual identity” but the announcement would “strengthen collaboration, increase access, and improve health outcomes for our community, while providing that care as close to home as possible.”
Cr Gallagher said the strong attendance of Yea residents at the meeting demonstrated that
concern extended beyond Alexandra to all rural Murrindindi and asked whether the uniquely rural generosity and community need would be understood by a metropolitan board and executive.
“Why has the network only been given 4.5 months to prove its worth, what is the fate of the network now, and what does this uncertainty mean for Yea and District Memorial Hospital,” he said.
“In this room, in June, this year, Andrew Embling and his Truck Show Committee raised $130,000 in a single night to fund the purchase of a mobile clinic to extend mental wellbeing and preventative health outcomes across Murrindindi Shire.
“What assurances do we have that an amalgamated entity will continue to take specialist services to the community, like the home-grown, world-first initiative of blood pressure, skin, and cholesterol checks for farmers and livestock transporters at the monthly Yea cattle sales.”
Cr Gallagher also raised the test case of the amalgamation of Mt. Buller, Mt. Hotham, Mt. Baw Baw, and Lake Mountain into Alpine Resorts Victoria (ARV) as a recent example of amalgamation that didn’t benefit their community.
Cr Gallagher said amalgamation doesn’t tend to work so well for the little guy.
“The promise was great, and the business case was strong, and yet ARV’s merger has yielded fewer days of operations and reduced investment at Lake Mountain,” he said.
“What assurances does the community have that healthcare services and standards won’t diminish, what reporting will be provided to demonstrate that our unfavourable health indicators around the likes of alcohol impacts and obesity rates are improving and not sliding further.”
“Amalgamation is not the only option, there are other pathways to strengthen services and secure financial sustainability, we have an obligation to explore these alternatives thoroughly, this must not be rushed.”
ADH’s catchment area (as of 2021) consists of only 6826 people and 140 staff, compared to EH’s 908,984 people and 11,920 staff, furthering concerns ‘the little guy’ will be shut out.
Mr O’Connor said their community are hearing lots of ifs, coulds, shoulds, and hopefully’s.
“What we are very aware of is that Murrindindi has a very small population and that the rest of the eastern catchment has a very large population so just by law of averages, the chances of us having some seats around the table are statistically so much smaller,” he said.
“There is a pathway here for local people to be part of the Community Engagement Committee (CEC), that’s basically our mechanism to have a voice into the broader Eastern Health Board… but the current Alexandra CEC only found out about the potential amalgamation on the same day that everyone else did.
“If the hospital is telling us how to trust the process, the CEC is your avenue to have a voice, but in the past, the CEC have been the last person to find out about this, then there’s some issues with us being able to trust the process.”
