Tuesday, 26 November 2024

Maternal and child health services

Annabelle CLEELAND (Euroa) (19:06): (943) My adjournment this evening is for the Minister for Health, and the action I seek is that no regional maternity services close as a result of Labor’s newly announced taskforce. With the announcement of this maternity taskforce, there are worries of a resource shift away from regional local services to larger hospitals in Melbourne. There is cost cutting that is resulting in the closure of midwifery units and continuity-of-care programs right across regional Victoria. Our regional maternity services are already under immense pressure and need more support than they are currently receiving from this government. Local service closures, staff cuts, a lack of effective resources to provide care and a decrease in the options available for new mums are just some of the many, many issues that have been raised directly with me. A lack of funding support from this government has already resulted in providers like Benalla Health having to close their birthing services and Kilmore health’s maternity ward operating on reduced hours between 6 am and 6 pm. Unfortunately, try as we might, having a baby may occasionally need to happen outside of business hours.

With closures and reduced hours at hospitals right across the region, many of these women will be forced towards hospitals such as Northeast Health Wangaratta for maternity care now. Wangaratta’s maternity care supports over 700 births per year and provides care for families from towns right across regional Victoria who are already unable to access care close to home. The hospital recently lost 30 ‍midwives from their staff and are still dealing with a hiring freeze and a lack of resources following the Department of Health’s directive to contain costs. No clarity has been provided since then regarding the future of Northeast’s midwifery practice or potential staffing increases, despite their waitlist of expecting mothers growing. When I spoke with Lauren, a registered midwife from the region, she said the cuts will impact Wangaratta’s iconic midwifery group practice, regarded by many as the gold standard in maternity services. This is a continuity-of-care model that results in lower rates of intervention, lower risks of preterm birth and foetal loss and higher rates of maternal satisfaction. The program costs less as well, despite the government still trying to shut them down.

In an electorate that spans 13,000 square kilometres it is shameful that the majority of local women cannot access maternity care. Having spoken to parents across the region, it is clear our midwives and maternity health providers need more support and not less. Katey Voysey from Kilmore said from early in her pregnancy it was clear that many of the local GPs were uninformed in caring for women experiencing high-risk pregnancies. She was often having to prompt for tests to be done and request additional tests as well; otherwise her daughter was likely not to be carried to term. Her story is troubling, and there are too many like it. I came into this place with a positive outlook to campaign for increased services across our hospitals, not to fight to maintain the bare minimum of funding to stay open.