The urgent need to safeguard rural maternity units from closure, such as what happened at Milton Ulladulla Hospital, or downgrading will be the focus of the annual RDAA Federal Politicians Lunch in Canberra today.
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It will be hosted by the Rural Doctors Association of Australia (RDAA) and attended by more than 100 politicians, rural doctors, industry leaders and other stakeholders at Parliament House.
The critical role that maternity units play in rural communities, and the urgent need to protect and reopen birthing services, will be highlighted with the benefits to mothers, babies, families and the entire community explained.
RDAA President Dr John Hall, a rural generalist obstetrician and passionate advocate for retaining and reopening rural maternity services will speak at the lunch, along with president of the Royal Australian and New Zealand College of Obstetricians and Gynaecologists (RANZCOG), Dr Vijay Roach.
"When a rural maternity unit is closed or downgraded, there is a huge adverse impact on local women, their babies and families," Dr Hall said.
"But there is also an enormous cost to the wider local community, as doctors and other highly skilled health professionals are forced to move elsewhere to work in the field they were trained and do the work that they love.
"When a medical service loses these staff, the resulting workforce shortage and the resulting reduction of procedures carried out at the local hospital means the wider community also suffers from a decline in health services they could previously access locally."
Dr Hall said that while rural Australians realise they can't access brain surgery at their local hospital, they do expect and deserve to be able to access birthing services there.
He said that while not every small hospital should be a birthing facility, decisions around birthing service availability need to be based on more than just reactionary closures due to issues that need resolution, not avoidance.
"Access to local maternity services sits alongside a patient's access to a regular GP, emergency care and inpatient hospital care as a basic human right."
- Dr Hall
"Access to local maternity services sits alongside a patient's access to a regular GP, emergency care and inpatient hospital care as a basic human right," Dr Hall said.
"While a genuine commitment by state governments is the catalyst needed to save existing maternity units from closure, and even re-open some units, the Federal Government also has an essential role, through its hospital funding agreements with the States, and its role in ensuring there is the skilled health workforce being trained and supported to deliver these services.
"We need the Commonwealth to move quickly - more quickly than they are now - with the wider rollout of the National Rural Generalist Pathway, to deliver more Rural Generalist doctors with obstetric and anaesthetic qualifications into the rural communities that need them.
"It also means ensuring that measures designed to attract more doctors to rural and remote communities are actually fulfilling that purpose."
Dr Hall stressed that delivering more rural training options to medical students and junior doctors who are keen on working in rural and remote practice is also crucial.
He cited an example out of Queensland where services were down and out but were able to get back on its feet.
"There needs to be a genuine investment in the service - and in the local health workforce - to keep a maternity unit open. We saw this in Queensland a number of years ago, and it resulted in previously closed services being re-opened that now are thriving," he said.
"More state governments need to show this commitment, rather than finding every excuse under the sun to shut rural maternity services down, and the Federal Government needs to ensure they are doing all they can to support this.
"We have seen this starting to happen in some areas, but we must pull out all the stops now, to ensure there is a viable and growing health workforce in the bush."
While many women are forced to relocate in the last weeks of their pregnancy, Dr Hall reminded that it's not an option for everyone, nor should it have to be the only option available.
"Women and families need this service to be available within a reasonable distance of their home. Not everyone has the ability to relocate for up to a month pre-birth if they need monitoring," Dr Hall said.
"Rural maternity services are key to providing quality medical care close to home for the entire community, and they must be protected, supported and reinstated where necessary."
