My 6-year-old daughter Rosie has been under the multidisciplinary care of The Children's Hospital at Westmead since she was 6 months old. She was born with an extremely rare genetic mutation, and her health journey has included a liver transplant and, more recently, kidney failure requiring dialysis. We have travelled regularly from our South Coast home for clinics and extended inpatient admissions, and have spent years, including birthdays and Christmases, within these walls, and the relationships we've built with her care teams have been an enormous source of strength through some of the hardest days of our lives.

Rosie, like a number of other children with kidney failure, now requires haemodialysis. Westmead currently does not provide paediatric haemodialysis, meaning these children must transition to The Sydney Children's Hospital at Randwick for this treatment. Not only is treatment administered at a new hospital, but this requires transition to an entirely new specialist team. This causes significant distress to both patients, who have very little control over their care and lives in general, and families, who are forced to leave behind not only established relationships and connections with trusted medical professionals, but also split care between two separate locations when there are multiple medical leads, as is often the case with medically complex children. The challenges are magnified for families not local to Sydney, as it makes it impossible to stack appointments with multiple specialists on the same day, further increasing the time and monetary expense.

The burden is not only felt by the family, but also the patients, who often struggle with a change of routine and environment. Medically complex children have limited autonomy over their own body, and often changes of this magnitude are incredibly hard to accept. It can take months for a patient to build trust with their care team, and the sudden upheaval of this transition can cause immense distress and anxiety. In an environment where patient and family wellbeing are paramount, having a decision of this significance thrust upon us takes a substantial mental and emotional toll. What makes this especially difficult to accept is that it isn't a question of capability. The facilities at The Children's Hospital at Westmead are well equipped to care for children like Rosie and to administer haemodialysis, as has been done in the past. The obstacle is resource allocation, and the education of staff and provision of training to ensure that this service can be safely provided. While it is understood that adequate training and education take time, the delay currently lies at a higher level with the decision-makers. As such, we are compelled to lend our voices as parents, carers and patients to this conversation, and emphasise the distress that families are experiencing as a result of this indecision and inaction.

What we are asking for is not a criticism of Randwick's care, but recognition of the impact this transition takes on children and families who are already managing the enormous physical and emotional weight of chronic illness. For many of us, Westmead is not just a hospital. It is where we have built years of trust with staff who know our children and our families, and that continuity matters, particularly in moments of crisis. Every family managing a child's haemodialysis deserves that same continuity of care, close to the relationships and support systems they rely on. Even more importantly, they deserve a choice.

We are asking for Westmead to be resourced and supported so families facing kidney failure have the choice to keep their child within the care team they already trust. We call on NSW Health and the Sydney Children's Hospitals Network to consider the emotional and practical impact on families, alongside the clinical and resourcing factors, and resource and reinstate paediatric haemodialysis at Westmead.

Please sign this petition to support the reinstatement of paediatric haemodialysis services at The Children's Hospital at Westmead, so that children and families facing kidney failure are not forced to lose the continuity of care that means so much during the most difficult periods of their lives.