New birthing suite lays dormant as hospital fails to find staff

When Carmen Carslake was planning to give birth in February, she thought she would be doing it at Gunnedah's brand new birthing suite.

"They'd just done the big renovation, so we assumed they could birth there, but that wasn't the case yet," she said.

A broader $53 million redevelopment of the northern New South Wales hospital was unveiled in January and included a new birthing suite and bedroom in the inpatient and maternity unit.

Hunter New England Local Health District (HNELHD) confirmed in a statement it was not currently supporting birthing services at Gunnedah Hospital because "ongoing recruitment efforts have so far been unable to secure GP obstetricians".

The spokesperson declined to say how long birthing services had been suspended and if the new suite had been used at all.

They said women were still being supported by local midwives during and after pregnancy, who help them with individual plans to give birth at Tamworth or Newcastle.

"We understand women want to give birth as close to home as possible, and we apologise that they cannot currently plan to give birth at Gunnedah Hospital," the statement said.

Ms Carslake had been hoping to travel 40 kilometres from her home in Boggabri to give birth in Gunnedah, but the thought of needing to travel at least another hour to Tamworth was "nerve-wracking".

"We ended up selecting a C-section simply for the fact that we didn't want to be stuck in Boggabri and go into labour and be an hour and a half away from the hospital," she said.

"It wasn't a fun experience and we had to do all of our appointments up in Tamworth, which, being heavily pregnant, wasn't enjoyable either."

Ms Carslake said it was "frustrating" that they could not access the new facilities.

"We were driving through Gunnedah all the time to get to Tamworth, knowing … potentially we could have been in Gunnedah birthing."

'Full-blown national crisis'

HNELHD said recruitment was an "ongoing challenge nationally".

There are signs of strain elsewhere around the state.

In Tumut, women are being sent more than 100km away to Wagga Wagga after its only obstetrician was banned from practising at the hospital earlier this year, with recruitment still underway.

The maternity ward at Parkes has lain dormant since 2019, but NSW Health Minister Ryan Park recently confirmed work was still underway to build a team there with the intention of reopening it.

Recruitment is also underway to find a replacement to keep Scone's birthing service open after its GP obstetrician retires at the end of the year.

President of the National Association of Specialist Obstetricians and Gynaecologists Elizabeth Jackson said the challenge of recruiting GP obstetricians in regional areas was "a full-blown national crisis that is not being spoken of".

"When one regional area fails the problem snowballs down the road to the next regional area and the next, and then you start to have a system under strain," she said.

Dr Jackson said more needed to be done to invest in the recruitment and retention of specialist doctors.

"There are not enough GP obstetricians [in the training pipeline] now to replace the ones that are retiring."

She said specialist doctors want more flexibility to work in both private and public obstetrics, particularly in regional areas.

"It's not always about only investing within the public sector and in fact private obstetrics and the ability for GPs that specialise in obstetrics to be able to offer some level of private birthing is as equally important as it is to specialist obstetricians as well."

In a statement, a federal government spokesperson said it was delivering an additional $25 billion in hospital funding across all states and territories over five years under the new hospital funding agreement.

"The National Maternity Workforce Strategy is currently in development and will be considered by Health Ministers this year," the statement said.

Mr Park said he regularly consulted with specialists and doctors, including peak bodies, and his government has "invested heavily" in strengthening the regional medical workforce, including for specialist doctors.

"Through doubling our rural health incentives up to $20,000 for critical and hard-to-fill roles, $200.1 million for more key health worker accommodation, expanding the Rural Generalist Single Employer Pathway program and implementing recommendations from the Rural Health Inquiry," he said in a statement.

HNELHD said it also offered relocation assistance and housing, additional leave, and access to training and education.