Media Release
Midwives call to re-open closed maternity units
As midwives across the world celebrate International Day of the Midwife on 5 May, those in
Beaudesert, Maleny, Cooktown and dozens of other towns across Queensland without a
maternity unit are wondering if their skills and expertise will ever be used to benefit local families.
In 2004 the independent review of QLD’s maternity services showed that in the previous 10 years
36 of QLD’s 84 public maternity units had closed.
“Midwives are working hard across the state to provide pregnancy, birth and post-natal care to
more than 55,000 families every year in QLD.” said Dr Jenny Gamble, spokesperson for the QLD
branch of the Australian College of Midwives.
“Although midwives strive to provide excellent care, the system is letting our families down
because it’s not providing maternity care that meets the needs of women or their communities.
Pregnant and labouring women are expected to travel to us, sometimes long distances, and
many are expected to leave their home and their family to await the birth of their child in another
place,” Dr Gamble said.
“This year’s theme of International Day of the Midwife is ‘Healthy families: the key to the future’
and the best step we can make today in towns like Beaudesert, Maleny, and Cooktown is to bring
birthing services back to where they belong – with families in these towns. Midwives can provide
continuity of care for women in their childbearing years and could provide invaluable health
promotion and preventative healthcare to families,” she said.
Mareeba successfully opened its closed maternity unit and Goondiwindi has started an innovative
program to make its maternity unit viable into the future.
Dr Gamble said, “These towns have shown us it is possible to keep birth local but it comes at a
cost. These programs have been driven by strong local support, and by the dedication of a few,
highly motivated individuals. It is not necessarily well-supported by QLD Health with adequate
resources, infrastructure or systems.
“It’s time the health system starts working with us, rather than against us. The current system
doesn’t fully utilise midwives or their specialist midwifery skills for the benefit of women, babies and
families,” she said.
“Local women and families, their community, and individual midwives and doctors want to see
better maternity services for rural Queensland, but we need the help of QLD Health to coordinate
it effectively and make it a reality.
“By turning around our maternity services we could play an important role in turning around the
looming health crisis Australia faces with obesity, diabetes and heart disease. If midwives can
help mothers during pregnancy to stop smoking, exercise moderately and learn about the
benefits of breastfeeding, then this stands the family in good stead.
“We need to better utilise the skills of midwives across QLD to improve our maternity system for
mothers and babies while at the same time improving our country’s health.”
Dr Jenny Gamble, Australian College of Midwives 0404 080 518
AUSTRALIAN COLLEGE OF MIDWIVES (QLD BRANCH)
NEWS 
