Government finally acts on Gladstone pregnancy services failure
A major central Queensland hospital expects to offer 24-hour maternity services by the end of this month after a temporary doctor signed a contract, but local women will still need to drive more than 100 kilometres to give birth.
Gladstone Hospital has been on maternity bypass since July, which has prevented most women in the city of 63,515 people from giving birth unless by elective caesarean, and they instead have to drive to Rockhampton when they go into labour.
Acting Premier Steven Miles said a temporary doctor had signed a contract to start work on January 30, which will allow the hospital to offer maternity services around the clock from that date, but the bypass will remain until they can recruit another four permanent obstetricians.
āWe will continue to onboard the four obstetricians who weāve recruited. Some of them are coming from overseas, that will take some time for us to get them here,ā he told reporters in Cairns on Thursday.
āWe anticipate to be back to that full complement of 10 obstetricians around the middle of the year.ā
Gladstone mother Jemma Manwaring from the Save Gladstone Maternity WardĀ group has been calling on the government to commit funding for 600 births in the central Queensland city every year.
Manwaring said she couldnāt find evidence of any obstetrician roles being advertised in Gladstone or Rockhampton, and bristled at Health Minister Yvette DāAth on Wednesday denying knowing local mothers wanted to meet her.
She wrote to DāAthās office, which said her request would be up to the minister.
Opposition health spokesperson Ros Bates called for DāAth to be sacked over the issues at Gladstone, as well as the stateās long elective surgery delays and soaring ambulance ramping rates.
āWeāve seen that Yvette DāAth has been caught out lying yet again, Yvette DāAth is a fraud, a phony and a failure, and if Annastacia Palaszczuk hadnāt checked out and (been) on the red carpet, she would have sacked her six months ago,ā she told reporters on the Gold Coast.
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When asked if he still had confidence DāAth, Mr Miles said she was an āexcellent health ministerā in a complex and complicated portfolio.
āOften issues get boiled down to simple slogans on headlines by the opposition and by the media, but I know just how hard it is working every single day and I have absolute confidence in her,ā said Miles, himself a former health minister.
āThereās no harder job than being the health minister. I know that and she is working incredibly hard, sheās incredibly passionate.ā
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