Review finds maternity unit problems persist at Toowoomba Hospital

Longstanding issues at Toowoomba Hospital's troubled maternity unit remain unresolved, an independent review of the ward says.

The assurance review of the unit, released today, found that while some changes were underway, several areas, including complaint processes, still needed fixing.

Queensland Health commissioned the review in February after years of complaints from mothers and families about maternity services at the major regional hospital.

Most recently, a Toowoomba mother revealed footage that showed her support person being unnecessarily removed from the birth of her son.

A panel wrote the report, which was prepared by independent experts who examined Darling Downs Health's response to five previous reviews and investigations into the service since 2018 and the 117 recommendations made.

The experts highlight how long the report took to finalise: an Internal Maternity Services Review Report was commissioned in August 2018 but was not received by the chief executive until October last year.

Focus on complaints

A significant portion of the review focused on how complaints were handled at the hospital, particularly on maternity outcomes since January 1, 2025.

It found the hospital had no dedicated maternity complaints service and described "barriers to raising concerns, poor visibility of complaint pathways, dissatisfaction with responses, poor communication, lack of follow-up, and a perception that complaints did not lead to meaningful resolution or change."

"In particular, concerns raised in real time during care were sometimes experienced as dismissed, minimised or redirected into formal processes without meaningful response."

The review found policy change was "early in its lifecycle" and not yet embedded into routine practice at the maternity ward.

"The service is still transitioning from a reactive model of governance to a more proactive, evidence-based approach," the report said.

The panellists identified a "significant risk" that the specific details from the 117 previous recommendations may have been "inadvertently overlooked" when being broadly summarised in Darling Downs Health' Master Action Plan.

Director-General of Queensland Health David Rosengren said Darling Downs Health was considering the opportunities identified by the review to strengthen the complaints process and support community confidence in maternity outcomes "as a matter of priority".

"Queensland Health values the opportunity to improve its processes and services, and I thank staff and consumers for their participation in the assurance review."