A public hearing and community forum will be held at the All Seasons on Tuesday where Bendigo maternal and child nurses, midwives and neonatal nurses will be among those to give evidence about shortcomings in the state’s perinatal services.

The session is part of a Victorian Government inquiry into perinatal services.

Bendigo Health, St John of God Hospital and the Bendigo and District Aboriginal Co-operative will also address the inquiry.

Bendigo Health made a submission to the inquiry earlier this year, highlighting staffing issues as the hospital encounters “rapid growth” in demand for its maternity services.

The health service reported that its Special Care Nursery had been at 90 per cent capacity for the entirety of 2017, and it was close to capacity when the new maternity ward opened at the start of this year. 

Bendigo Health’s maternity ward is also using casual staff on a daily basis, and offered staff gift cards if they could refer a midwife to work at the hospital.

Despite the staff shortages, the Bendigo hospital managed to break its monthly record for babies delivered at the hospital earlier this year. In August, 147 babies were delivered at Bendigo Health.

The hospital is now required to accept at-risk mothers from across the region, adding to the volume of births taking place in the new maternity ward.

In its submission, Mount Alexander Shire Council addressed the issue of relying too heavily on larger hospitals to cater for a region’s maternity needs.

“The centralisation of most perinatal services in Bendigo or Melbourne limits the availability of and access to many of the services by families,” the submission reads.

“A lack of outreach services within the Shire also places pressure on the family to travel to the services at a time when they are most vulnerable.”

The hearing begins at 9am Tuesday at the All Seasons, with a community forum at 1.30pm.