QUEENSLAND’S maternity crisis continues to deepen, with revelations that yet another regional hospital had closed the doors to its maternity ward, leaving Queenslanders in dozens of regional centres without access to local birthing services.
Cooktown is the 38th maternity service closed by Labor, leaving regional Queensland mothers with limited choices for safe births.
Shadow Minister for Health Ros Bates said Queensland mothers should not be forced to choose between a home birth and a roadside birth, because the Palaszczuk Government had taken the scalpel to maternity wards across the state.
“This news is gut-wrenching for Queensland mothers who are watching local maternity care disappear and wondering how they’re going to safely give birth,” Ms Bates said.
“First we saw mothers forced to run the gauntlet of a one-hour drive down the highway, now we’re seeing mothers in Cooktown and Weipa forced to drive for half a day, or catch a flight, just to access basic maternity care.
“What has Queensland’s maternity crisis come to when mothers are opting to have home births, because they don’t want to be caught on the side of the highway.
“Families who want to live and work in regional Queensland are facing the difficult decision to have a home birth, risk a roadside birth, or leave their family behind to safely deliver a baby.
“That’s not the modern Queensland we want to live in.
“Mums should be able to give birth when, where and how they want.
“Gladstone was just the tip of the iceberg for a major problem that has been growing on Labor’s watch.
“In an area the size of Tasmania, from Calliope to Chinchilla, not one single maternity ward is operational.
“That is a failure from the Palaszczuk Government to plan, deliver and evaluate.”
Ms Bates said all Queenslanders deserved to have a world class health system, no matter where they chose to live.
“People in regional Queensland are being treated like second class citizens. The mass-closure of maternity services aren’t the labour pains women were expecting in their home town,” she said.
“As a nurse and former hospital administrator, I know how dangerous it is for mums who don’t have access to urgent medical care during pregnancy.
“After being in power for 22 of the last 25 years, this crisis rests at the feet of the Labor Party.
“And after three terms of the Palaszczuk Government, it seems they have given up on listening.
“It has been eight years of broken promises and eight years of the Labor Government destroying the health system.
“Regional Queenslanders deserve better.”
Since 1998 Labor has closed maternity services at Cooktown, Babinda, Mossman, Yeppoon, Mount Morgan, Moura, Springsure, Barcaldine, Blackall, Winton, Jandowae, Miles, Taroom, Texas, Wondai, Bowen, Clermont, Collinsville, Dysart, Moranbah, Kilcoy, Maleny, Mitchell, Quilpie, Weipa, Gayndah, Maryborough, Monto, Mundubbera, Gatton, Tully, Theodore, Nambour, Cunnamulla, Charters Towers and Gladstone, Biloela and Chinchilla are on bypass with uncertain futures.
When the LNP was last in government maternity services were restored in Chinchilla and Beaudesert and more were on the way. None were closed.