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The Camperdown community, expectant mothers and birthing staff at Camperdown Hospital are outraged at the immediate downgrading – and effective closure – of their maternity service, reducing it from low-risk birthing to nil-birthing, with no notice given and for no good reason.
The Rural Doctors Association of Victoria, Australian College of Midwives and Maternity Consumer Network have also been so outraged by the decision that they have raised their concerns directly with the Victorian Minister for Health, Mary-Anne Thomas MP, and called for the maternity service to be immediately reinstated.
The maternity service at Camperdown Hospital had been operating at Level 3 capability (planned low-risk birthing, including caesarean sections) but has now been reduced to Level 1 capability – meaning no planned birthing is now available locally.
Following an 18 month period of disruption due to an operating theatre upgrade and then a period of unscheduled staff leave, Camperdown’s maternity service had recently started to stabilise in recent months – only to be impacted by last week’s shock announcement.
The doctors at Camperdown Hospital who provide inpatient, emergency and procedural services were not consulted on the decision – rather, they were simply informed last Monday of the downgrade, which came into effect immediately.
Alecia Staines from the Maternity Consumer Network said:
“When women have confidence in the reliability of their local birthing service, giving birth locally is usually the preferred choice for mothers expecting low-risk births.
“Having all your prenatal care provided through the wonderful team of local GP obstetricians and highly skilled midwives in Camperdown, however, and then suddenly being required to travel nearly an hour to Warrnambool and into the care of strangers to have your baby, is far from ideal. “Worryingly, this is a growing trend. Colac maternity service is now being put on bypass regularly, meaning that Colac mothers already have to relocate to Geelong to birth their babies. “Centralising birthing into large regional centres like Warrnambool and Geelong does not make for a safer service, nor does it enhance care for women living in rural areas. The continuing disintegration of rural birthing
services in Victoria must be stopped, as it is putting rural women and babies at much greater risk.”
Full media release:
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