Maternity services in the New England area are “absolutely dire”.
When maternity services at rural hospitals in the New England region go on bypass or have high-risk pregnant and labouring women, they usually divert them to Tamworth Hospital, the region’s biggest.
However, Tamworth’s maternity unit is so short of midwives it sometimes cannot function as a rural referral hospital and must go on bypass itself.
When that happens, women are usually sent to John Hunter Hospital in Newcastle, another 275km from their families and support.
Tamworth Hospital hit the headlines in October last year when a 60 per cent staff shortage in the maternity unit forced it to go on bypass more than a dozen times in four months.
Among midwives interviewed by the media at that time was 26-year-old Zoe Sattler, who said that during her three years on the maternity ward it wasn’t uncommon to have to work 18 hours straight with little time for a break before coming back for another shift eight hours later.
Zoe told NBN News she was quitting her full-time position at Tamworth Hospital to take a less-pressured 9 to 5, Monday to Friday job in the disability sector.
NSWNMA Tamworth Hospital Branch The staff shortage prompted Australian Medical Association NSW president Dr Kathryn Austin to warn of the potential for avoidable deaths of a mother and baby.
“Tamworth is the hub of that entire region that can offer that higher level of care [including] support for operating theatres, [special care nursery] – all the things you may need during birth. When that goes on bypass, the situation is absolutely dire.” Dr Austin told The Sydney Morning Herald.
By April this year, Tamworth’s maternity staff deficit had slightly improved to an estimated 47 per cent including unfilled permanent positions and maternity leave positions.
“JUST DON’T HAVE THE STAFF”
Leonie Goldfinch, secretary of the NSWNMA’s Tamworth Hospital Branch, told The Lamp the “chronic” shortage of midwives persisted despite “fantastic efforts by our local management to recruit staff including from overseas”.
“When other units in the region are on bypass it can be crippling to our staff at Tamworth to manage the presentations from those hospitals as well as the women from our own local area,” Leonie said.
“We often have to cap the number of beds at 12 in the 20-bed ward because we just don’t have the staff.
“Bed closures are never done lightly because we understand the impact it can have on the community.
“Our managers try really hard to get enough staff so as not to go on bypass. When that happens, women have to move away from their support networks and arrange travel and accommodation and they lose faith in our service.
“We rely on midwives doing fly-in fly-out, plus agency staff and others from the Rural Reliever Program.
“Overtime used to be for when someone was sick, now it is to fill spots on the roster.”
Tamworth hasn’t had the staff to provide a home midwifery service since COVID-19 hit.
“Instead of us going out to women’s homes they have to drive up to an hour to see us at the hospital,” Leonie said.
“It’s a massive inconvenience to have to bring a newborn baby out in the rain or in a heatwave. The baby might also be sleeping or having feeding issues.”
THE SYSTEM IS BROKEN
Leonie is most concerned that the Minns government appears to be doing little to find solutions to the shortage of midwives.
“There are critical shortages across the state and it shouldn’t be up to grassroots midwives or local management to fix a system that is so obviously broken,” she said.
“The government has to step in and actually make a difference.
“Instead, they are refusing to negotiate to improve our low rates of pay and substandard working conditions and are taking us to the Industrial Relations Commission.
REGIONAL, RURAL AND REMOTE AREA MIDWIVES FACE “STAFF DEFICITS, OUTDATED FACILITIES AND EQUIPMENT, OUTDATED RATIOS AND OUTDATED PAY”, TAMWORTH MIDWIFE NAMITAMI MUNIKWA TOLD A SYDNEY RALLY LATE LAST YEAR.
“That approach does not help solve the staffing shortage at all.
“It’s the same for the psychiatrists and the doctors – the whole NSW health system is broken and the Minns government thinks it can rely on the goodwill of staff to pick up shifts.
“The government has got the whole health service offside because we all feel undervalued.
“Maybe part of the reason why we can’t recruit enough staff is that there is no solution in sight from the government.”
Alecia Staines of the Maternity Consumer Network told The Sydney Morning Herald that rural communities without maternity services experience higher rates of preterm and stillbirths.
“Once a maternity service closes, towns lose emergency care and operating theatres and effectively become geriatric units,” she said.