BENDIGO Health believes a regional partnership with smaller health services has helped to ease pressure on the new hospital’s maternity ward and has addressed a midwife shortage.
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A parliamentary inquiry into Victoria’s perinatal services made 86 recommendations to support the sector, which was described as “facing major challenges” due to staff shortages.
Recommendations included increased funding and staffing for rural maternity services to allow more women to give birth in their own community, rather than be transferred to a larger regional hospital like Bendigo.
Bendigo Health took part in the inquiry, detailing issues around a “rapid growth” in demand for its services, an increase in high risk women giving birth, and difficulties in workforce retention.
High risk births account for 70 per cent of births at Bendigo Health.
Bendigo Health director of obstetrics and gynaecology Nicola Yuen welcomed the recommendations from the inquiry, and said Bendigo Health had already “got on the front foot” in addressing issues specific to the Loddon-Mallee region.
“We formed the Loddon-Mallee Regional Clinical Council Perinatal Collaborative, which is a group of all the hospitals within Loddon-Mallee that deliver babies,” Dr Yuen said.
“So things like workforce training, skill development, maintenance of skills, those really big issues that were brought up in the report.
“We would be expected to take on the majority of the high-risk work, in the same way to support our colleagues in the smaller hospitals to take on the lower risk women.
“We want that balance to be maintained because it means we’re doing what we should be doing, and they’re doing what they should be doing.”
Workforce retention was the focus of 19 recommendations, including greater funding for scholarships to develop the workforce in regional areas, encouraging more midwifery experts to move into regional universities and an increase in midwifery places at regional universities.
Dr Yuen said it was important for midwifery courses to continue to be expanded in Bendigo.
“The going retention of the workforce is an issue in every hospital - every regional hospital in particular,” she said.
“We’re doing everything to address that gap at the moment, and certainly having such strong midwifery education within the towns, and within the unis, has really meant that we have a steady influx of new graduate midwives.”
The state government has six months to respond to the report.
The inquiry uncovered examples in metropolitan hospitals of women being discharged from hospital two days after giving birth, without being seen by a doctor.
Dr Yuen said these instances were limited to metropolitan hospitals, and did not occur at Bendigo Health.
Family and community development committee chair Paul Edbrooke MP said it was crucial that workforce issues were addressed.
“Across the board, but especially in regional areas, the perinatal workforce includes a range of health practitioners who face major challenges, including but not exclusive to, a shortage of midwives and nurses, population growth, and workplace stress,” he said.
“The inquiry certainly heard evidence of shortages of an appropriately qualified workforce, including midwives, paediatricians, obstetricians, general practitioners, anaesthetists, maternal and child health nurses, mental health practitioners and lactation consultants.
“The shortage of specialists, maternal and child health nurses, nurses, and midwives was especially prevalent in regional areas where attraction and retention are issues.”
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