WHY CANBERRA
Why closer access to specialist children's cancer care matters.
When a child has cancer, families need specialist care, trusted clinical expertise and as much stability as possible. For Canberra families, distance can add another layer of travel, disruption and pressure to an already difficult experience.
THE BIGGER PICTURE
Childhood cancer is uncommon. Its impact is not.
Around 776 Australian children aged 0–14 are diagnosed with cancer each year. Five-year survival is now around 87%, reflecting decades of progress in childhood cancer treatment.
But survival does not mean treatment is simple. Childhood cancer can involve repeated hospital admissions, prolonged treatment and years of specialist follow-up, rehabilitation and survivorship care.
Around 776 Australian children aged 0–14 are diagnosed with cancer each year, while around 92 children die from cancer annually. More than 20,000 Australians are living with the effects of childhood cancer.
Source: Cancer Australia, Childhood cancer facts, reviewed September 2025.
A large NSW linked-data study found that children aged 0–14 diagnosed with cancer had a median of 12 hospital admissions during their first year after diagnosis and 17 admissions across five years.
Children spent a median of 61 days in hospital over the five years following diagnosis, including a median of 51 days during the first year.
Source: Tan, Schofield & Shrestha, Journal of the National Comprehensive Cancer Network, 2021/2022. Historical NSW cohort of 2,966 children diagnosed between 2001 and 2012.
CANBERRA TODAY
Canberra already provides paediatric oncology care. But it is a shared-care model.
It is important to be accurate about the current situation. Canberra does not have no paediatric oncology care. Canberra Hospital provides important treatment and supportive services for children with cancer as part of a shared-care arrangement.
Current Canberra Health Services guidance describes Canberra Hospital as a secondary paediatric cancer treatment centre, working in collaboration with the Sydney Children's Hospitals Network, which remains the primary oncology team.
Canberra can provide prescribed treatment, emergency management, supportive care and blood products. However, the Child and Adolescent Short Stay Service administers a limited number of chemotherapy and supportive treatments.
Children and families can receive important elements of their care in Canberra, while specialist oncology leadership and other treatment remain connected to Sydney.
Canberra Health Services also provides travel and accommodation information for families whose children receive care through The Children's Hospital at Westmead or Sydney Children's Hospital, Randwick.
Source: Canberra Health Services clinical guidance, 2025, and Canberra Health Services travel and accommodation information.
The question is therefore not whether Canberra provides any paediatric oncology care. The question is whether more appropriate, specialist care could safely and sustainably be provided closer to home.
THE FAMILY IMPACT
Distance creates costs that medical treatment alone does not remove.
A child's cancer treatment affects the whole family. Travel can mean time away from work, additional accommodation and childcare costs, disruption to school and separation from siblings and support networks.
These pressures can continue throughout treatment rather than occurring only once. For families already dealing with uncertainty and emotional strain, repeated travel can become another significant burden.
A 2026 Australian study of families of children with brain tumours found that regional families incurred approximately 2.06 times the cost per hospital visit of metropolitan families, while rural families incurred approximately 1.87 times the cost.
The main cost drivers included lost productivity, accommodation and childcare.
Source: Lim et al., Pediatric Blood & Cancer, 2026. The study involved 97 families and specifically examined childhood brain tumours, so the findings should not be presented as applying identically to every childhood cancer.
Australian research has found that mothers' earnings fell by about 15% in the year their child began cancer treatment, remaining approximately 10% lower three years later in the study.
Source: Monash Centre for Health Economics summary of Firouzi Naeim, Johnston & Naghsh Nejad, IZA Discussion Paper No. 17850, 2025.
ACT qualitative research with families receiving interstate shared care identified issues including long-distance travel, fragmented communication, school disruption, sibling separation, employment pressure and accommodation costs.
Source: Health Care Consumers' Association, Kids Interstate Shared Care Project, 2020.
CARE CLOSER TO HOME
Australian experience shows that specialist care can be connected with local care.
The evidence does not suggest that every aspect of childhood cancer treatment should simply be moved away from tertiary centres. Complex cancer care requires specialist teams, clinical governance, appropriate facilities and highly trained staff.
It does show, however, that appropriately selected treatment and supportive care can be delivered closer to where families live when it is connected to specialist centres through clear clinical protocols and governance.
Queensland has operated paediatric oncology shared care through 10 regional units. The model connects regional services with tertiary specialists and includes clinical governance, chemotherapy credentialing, guidelines, education and regional case management.
Clinicians reported benefits including continuity of care, school return, family support and job security.
Source: Slater et al., Australian Journal of Rural Health, 2023.
A Sydney paediatric care-coordination program estimated that it avoided more than 51,000 kilometres of family travel and approximately 370 school absences over two years.
The same evaluation estimated reductions in emergency presentations and day-only admissions.
Importantly, this was a broader complex-paediatric-care program, not an oncology-only study. Its results should therefore be viewed as evidence about the potential benefits of coordinated care closer to home, rather than as a forecast for a Canberra oncology unit.
Source: Breen et al., BMC Health Services Research, 2018.
AN AUSTRALIAN CONTEXT
Dedicated and shared-care models already operate across Australia.
Other Australian jurisdictions demonstrate different ways of organising paediatric oncology services. These models are not directly interchangeable, but they demonstrate that specialist tertiary services can work alongside appropriately governed local services.
NSW has three dedicated paediatric oncology centres: Westmead, Randwick and Newcastle.
Source: Cancer Institute NSW.
The Royal Children's Hospital Children's Cancer Centre is Victoria's provider of complex childhood-cancer care and stem-cell transplantation and treats around 300 newly diagnosed patients under 18 each year.
Source: Royal Children's Hospital Melbourne.
Perth Children's Hospital provides dedicated oncology and haematology inpatient, same-day and outpatient services, alongside treatment planning, stem-cell transplantation, clinical trials and survivorship services.
Source: Perth Children's Hospital.
Queensland's tertiary paediatric oncology service works with 10 regional Shared Care Units, allowing selected treatment and supportive care to be delivered closer to home.
Source: Slater et al., Australian Journal of Rural Health, 2023.
THE CASE FOR CANBERRA
Closer care should mean connected care.
The evidence points to a practical principle: children should receive the right care, from the right specialists, in the right setting — with unnecessary travel and disruption minimised wherever it is clinically appropriate.
For Canberra and surrounding families, that means exploring what a dedicated Children's Oncology Unit could provide as part of a properly governed specialist network.
Such a service would not replace the expertise of tertiary children's hospitals. Instead, the goal is to build Canberra's capacity to provide more appropriate specialist care locally while maintaining strong clinical relationships with tertiary centres.
The available evidence supports the case for examining how more paediatric oncology treatment and supportive care could safely be delivered closer to Canberra families.
It does not establish the precise size, staffing model, configuration or cost of a future Canberra Children's Oncology Unit. Those questions require detailed clinical, workforce, infrastructure and health-service planning.
WHY IT MATTERS
Families should not have to travel further than necessary for care.
Every year, around 776 Australian children are diagnosed with cancer, and five-year survival is now 87%. Treatment can still involve repeated admissions, prolonged hospital stays and years of specialist follow-up.
In Canberra, current care is delivered through a Sydney-led shared-care model. Canberra Hospital provides supportive and emergency care and a limited number of chemotherapy treatments, while the Sydney Children's Hospitals Network remains the primary oncology team.
Australian evidence shows that distance can add employment, accommodation, childcare and travel costs for families. It also shows that appropriately governed models of care closer to home can reduce travel and disruption while keeping specialist expertise connected.
Closer 2 Care is advocating for Canberra to have the specialist facilities, people and capacity needed to provide more children's oncology care closer to home — safely, sustainably and as part of Australia's broader specialist paediatric cancer network.
SOURCES & FURTHER READING
Evidence behind this page
We believe advocacy is stronger when the information behind it is transparent. The following sources underpin the evidence presented on this page.
Cancer Australia — Childhood cancer facts
Canberra Health Services — Travel and accommodation information
Tan, Schofield & Shrestha — Childhood cancer hospital utilisation study
Lim et al. — Financial burden of childhood brain tumour care
Monash Centre for Health Economics — Employment impact of childhood illness
Health Care Consumers' Association — Kids Interstate Shared Care Project
Breen et al. — Paediatric care coordination and outcomes
Slater et al. — Fifteen years of paediatric oncology shared care in Queensland
Cancer Institute NSW — Childhood cancer support and services
Royal Children's Hospital Melbourne — Children's Cancer Centre
Information on this page is provided for public advocacy and educational purposes. Statistics and research findings are presented with their original study populations and limitations where relevant. Clinical decisions should always be based on advice from qualified healthcare professionals.