Geelong has a great Community Spirit with numerous volunteers associated with Barwon Health.

The Transport service provides travel assistance to outpatient clinics for those patients that do not have the means or family support to get to the hospital and to return to home.

Often patients require daily trips to the hospital — especially those attending Oncology clinics.

Many of the patients donate $4 for their trip.

60% of the patient trips are for Oncology, 20% for Renal Dialysis and 20% for the remainder.

Drivers provide support to patients in crisis and share the celebrations for good outcomes of the treatment.

Four vehicles operate 364 days per year, ferry 1600 patients per year and average 54,000Km/year each.

There are 80 volunteers drivers that participate in the driver roster; the median age of drivers is 60-65 years, 80% of them are male and most drivers participate for about ten years.

The cost of vehicle consumables and maintenance is $10,460 per vehicle per year.

Replacement vehicles are supplied from the retired Barwon Health fleet.

The ongoing costs of the service has already reduced the number of vehicles from five to four; now the fourth vehicle is financially at risk.

The vehicle sponsored by Rotary (our Club and other Clubs in the Geelong Bellarine area has done 30,000 patient trips since 2015.

Hospital staff can book trips with a phone App.