It will also have consequences in the looming election, as a state issue leaches into the federal sphere. It was certainly centre stage last week when Prime Minister Malcolm Turnbull visited Ulladulla with sitting Liberal MP Ann Sudmalis. 

Both told the angry mothers gathered to air their concerns that it was a state issue – and they were correct. It is.

However, public perception counts for much in an election and people are connecting two Coalition governments – in Canberra and in Sydney – to the problems in Milton. 

But that is a concern for politicians.

Much more serious are the concerns of mothers in Milton and Ulladulla and staff at our own often overworked hospital, not to mention paramedics. 

In Milton and Ulladulla, mothers face the prospect of a long and often perilous drive up the Princes Highway to give birth. There is a very real possibility some will find themselves giving birth on the side of the highway, stretches of which are notorious mobile phone black spots. Mothers in the southern extremity of the Shoalhaven will probably find themselves at Moruya Hospital.

Some mothers in Ulladulla are so concerned they will no longer have local maternity services, they are postponing plans to have more children because the thought of a roadside birth or, worse, an emergency in transit is untenable. 

The Illawarra Shoalhaven Local Health District insists the maternity ward problems are not related to funding but rather safety after adverse outcomes.

This is cold comfort indeed. 

In a growing region such as ours, the major centres of which are strung out along a winding highway, it is not unreasonable to expect reliable local health services. Access to a local maternity ward that can handle what is a fundamental passage of life should be a given.

And the hospital in Nowra, which has had its own adverse outcomes, which are often attributed to a lack of proper staffing and resources, should not have to pick up the baton when it is dropped elsewhere.

We insist this unsatisfactory situation be rectified promptly and Milton’s maternity services are restored.