Hundreds of pregnant women to be displaced as Melbourne hospital plans to slash services
Monash Health’s “distressing” plan to slash maternity services at Dandenong Hospital could force up to 700 pregnant women to seek care elsewhere each year.
A major Melbourne hospital is planning to slash its maternity services, a move that would displace up to 700 pregnant women, Victoria’s nursing union claims.
A 2025 Change of Impact Statement revealed Monash Health is preparing to significantly downgrade maternity services at Dandenong Hospital, cutting a third of its birth suites and reducing its capacity to care for sick and premature babies.
“The proposal from Monash Health that Dandenong Hospital maternity and special care nursery will only care for low-risk women and neonates as inpatients will impact up to 700 women a year,” the Australian Nursing and Midwifery Federation, Victorian Branch Secretary Maddy Harradence said in a statement.
“Women who were planning to have their baby at Dandenong Hospital will be distressed at the thought of having to relocate further away from home for their birthing needs or to visit their unwell baby who could have been cared for close to home at Dandenong Hospital.”
But a Monash Health spokesperson refuted the unions claims insisting an estimated ten per cent of the approximately 2,500 births at Dandenong each year are high risk and would therefore be planned for at Casey Hospital or Monash Medical Centre.
“Under our proposal, higher risk pregnancies and newborns who require specialist care will be managed at Casey Hospital or Monash Medical Centre and Monash Children’s Hospital, where the necessary expertise and resources are concentrated to ensure the safest possible outcomes for mothers and babies,” a Monash Health spokesperson said.
If the proposed plans are implemented, Dandenong would become one of the few public hospitals in Melbourne that no longer regularly treats vulnerable newborns.
The proposed cuts include reducing the number of maternity ward beds, dropping the maternity capability level from level four to level three and the Special Care Nursery capability from level three to level two – which would mean Dandenong Hospital can no longer care for complex pregnancies and newborns.
Greater Dandenong Councillor Rhonda Garad said the cuts would erode the community’s trust in the health service, with fellow councillors on Monday evening voting unanimously to support a notice of motion asking Monash Health to cease its plans.
“Women will have less confidence to give birth in our hospital,” Cr Garad said.
“They’re really gutting maternity services because what they’re doing is reducing the number of beds in special care nursery beds which means if things go wrong when a baby is born, if it needs particular care, there will be less beds, less capacity to deal with that.
“They’re choosing to severely reduce our maternity services here and the justifications they are using just don’t add up.”
Monash Health claim that 48 per cent of births at Dandenong already live within the Casey LGA.
Monash Health defended its proposal stating: “As birthrates in Casey continue to rise while those in Dandenong remain steady, we need to ensure our services are located where demand is highest and families need them most”.
“This will allow more families to access the right care, closer to home.”
But Cr Garad said Dandenong represented “the highest needs demographic”.
“Casey has a very high level of private hospital births … almost all our women are dependent on the public hospital,” Cr Garad said.
“They’re basically saying that women will have to go to Casey which is a long way and a lot of these women do not have transport, they have small children – it’s really not easy.”
The Australian Nursing and Midwifery Federation supported Cr Garad’s claims: “The impact of separating mothers and babies may include psychological trauma and reduced breastfeeding rates as well as increased travel costs for disadvantaged families.”
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