The Royal Children’s Hospital (RCH) is seeing an increase in demand for our services, along with high acuity in our patients and increasing levels of staff illness. This is impacting wait times for our services as well as some planned surgeries.

Every day, our teams assess our ability to perform planned surgeries depending on the clinical priority of any emergency patients who have arrived overnight, bed availability and staffing levels.

We understand that waiting and preparing for surgery can take a considerable toll on families. We particularly empathise with our families who travel long distances to receive care for their little ones. We sincerely regret having to make these choices when there is no capacity to facilitate the surgery or services required to provide the best care.

We promise that we are working as hard as we can to reschedule postponed procedures as soon as possible.

Thank you to all our patients, families and community for your patience with a complex, ever-evolving situation. We appreciate that you continually understand our priority to treat children with the most critical need and provide the best care to everyone who comes to the RCH.