BENDIGO Health hopes to help women give birth close to home, as many smaller hospitals around the region face a threat to birthing services.
Subscribe now for unlimited access.
$0/
(min cost $0)
or signup to continue reading
Kyneton District Health birthing suites are will close on September 30, after a drop in the number of women choosing to give birth at the service.
Bendigo Health Head of Obstetrics and Gynaecology Nicola Yuen said the hospital was working closely with smaller regional hospitals to help keep services open.
Kyneton District Health deputy chief executive Karen Laing said the number of women having babies at the hospital had steadily declined during the last five or six years.
The resignation of one of Kyneton's two GP obstetricians ultimately led to the closure of the service, when the hospital could not replace them.
Ms Laing said five years ago the hospital delivered 110-120 babies per year. In 2018-19 just 26 women gave birth at the birthing suites.
Only women with low risk pregnancies were able to labour and give birth in the hospital's birthing suite.
About 50 per cent of pregnant women who initially presented to Kyneton were transferred to metropolitan or regional hospitals as their pregnancy progressed.
Read more: Kyneton Hospital suspends birthing care
The hospital announced in August it would suspend labour and birth care at the hospital's maternity service from September 30.
It will still offer pregnancy and postnatal care.
Those booked in to give birth will be transferred to other health services in the area, such as Castlemaine and Bendigo.
Ms Laing said geography and an increasing proportion of pregnancies being high risk were among the factors causing a decline in women giving birth at Kyneton hospital.
"Women are having babies older, so there's a lot of things that don't fit into a low risk profile as well. Older ladies, ladies that might be overweight, they might develop diabetes during their pregnancy," she said.
"In Kyneton we're actually not very far from other higher levels of care. We're not like some of the other smaller rural levels of service that are actually very remote.
"We're sort of a victim of our geography really. If we were remote it would have caused a lot more inconvenience and disappointment to people."
Ms Laing said the limited offerings of a smaller birth service like Kyneton meant it was difficult to attract GP obstetricians.
She said GP obstetricians wanted to practice the full range of their skills, such as emergency caesarians, which were services Kyneton could not offer.
Ms Laing said the hospital had left the door open for re-starting its birthing service in the future by continuing pregnancy and post-natal care.
"If we folded everything, we know that it's very difficult to re-open from scratch," she said.
"If you maintain some antenatal service, at least you've got the knowledge and the skills are still maintained in the organisation."
But some Kyneton women were worried that the change might cause difficulties, especially for those who live the town's rural surrounds.
Glenhope resident Alana Macleod gave birth to her three children in the Kyneton birthing suites. She believes if she'd had to travel further, she would have given birth on the side of the road.
Kyneton women will be able to give birth at Castlemaine's hospital, about half an hour's drive away.
But for a woman in Ms Macleod's position - part of "country families" - this would mean extra driving on rough rural roads, through Kangaroo infested areas, she said.
The great thing about Kyneton as you had such personalised care, and you were never rushed out of that hospital.
- Alana Macleod
Ms Macleod was surprised that more families weren't choosing Kyneton to give birth. She said it would affect people without a lot of money, or those having their second baby.
She said she was disappointed for other people in her position - with low risk pregnancies - whose options had been curtailed.
"It's almost forcing us to go pushing us to more centralised birthing centres, who are more medicalised in their approach," Ms Macleod said.
"It's pushing us away from our own support systems and our communities by making us birth outside our immediate communities."
"The great thing about Kyneton as you had such personalised care, and you were never rushed out of that hospital."
Read more: Hopes to ease Kyneton Hospital rift
Dr Yuen said Kyneton's closure showed up a bigger issue, that was the threat to very small hospitals around the region that provide birthing services.
She said Bendigo Health was working closely with smaller hospitals to make sure women could receive maternity care as close to home as possible.
As a tertiary centre Bendigo Health's can give women nearly all types pregnancy, birthing and postnatal care.
It means the hospital's catchment for complicated pregnancies stretches as far as Mildura, Swan Hill and Deniliquin, NSW.
Dr Yuen said the hospital wanted to see smaller birthing services stay open for the sake of women.
"Everything we're trying to do is around being patient centred, women centred," Dr Yuen said.
"Childbirth and pregnancy is not supposed to be an event where you're isolated from the people who love and care for you.
"We're doing everything we can to ensure that women get care close to home."
Read more: New health unit gives hope to sick
Dr Yuen said the trend towards fewer births in smaller hospitals was complex, with factors such as the number of higher risk pregnancies, and the choices women made around care both playing a part.
"The closure of Kyneton has certainly raised concern across the community and across hospitals that provide birthing services with low numbers," Dr Yuen said.
"As a regional centre we are doing our best to make sure we train, support, workforce to those smaller hospital."
Have you signed up to the Bendigo Advertiser's daily newsletter and breaking news emails? You can register below and make sure you are up to date with everything that's happening in central Victoria.