The Australian Nursing and Midwifery Federation (Victorian Branch) is calling on the Federal and Victorian governments to urgently review funding arrangements to cohealth's vital Collingwood, Kensington and Fitzroy community health services.
cohealth has announced it is being forced to close these GP practices as current funding models are structured around short consultations. The models do not provide the time required or the funding for high-needs patients who face issues including homelessness, trauma, addictions and family violence.
On 15 October, Cohealth advised ANMF (Vic Branch) that GP practices at Collingwood, Kensington and Fitzroy will close in mid-December. The Collingwood service will close in mid-2026 once all non-GP services have been relocated to Fitzroy.
This closure will also impact 44 ANMF members who provide extraordinary nursing care at these services. ANMF is meeting with members early next week to discuss the announcement, redeployment and redundancies.
The ANMF (Vic Branch) delegation to the 17th ANMF Biennial National Conference raised the co-health closure directly with Federal Health and Ageing Minister Mark Butler yesterday after he addressed the union.
ANMF is seeking an urgent meeting with Minister Butler to discuss this concerning proposed closure and the development of a sustainable funding model for this cohort of clients.
Compared to the broader Australian population, cohealth's patient profile is markedly different:
- 62 per cent receive government benefits (compared with 25 per cent of the Australian adult
- population)
- 13 per cent identify as refugees (well above typical community prevalence)
- 9 per cent experience homelessness or insecure housing
- 45 per cent live with chronic disease and 20 % have multimorbidity, driving much higher care needs.
ANMF (Vic Branch) Secretary Maddy Harradence said, 'Our members are gutted by this news and devastated for the vulnerable people who rely on these services.
'The closure of these practices will push patients to St Vincent's, the Royal Melbourne Hospital and Western Health and shift pressure to the healthcare workers at those services, who already face significant demands.
'We should be building more of these community-based services, not closing down the ones we already have,' Ms Harradence said.
'We call on the Federal and Victorian governments to deliver the funding that will keep cohealth services open, and support the nurses and other healthcare workers at these services to continue to deliver care to some of Victoria's most vulnerable community members.'
About us:
The ANMF (Vic Branch) has over 111,000 members – nurses, midwives and aged care personal care workers – across the Victorian health and aged care sectors.
