Calls to sack Qld Health Minister over maternity crisis

The state Opposition has slammed Health Minister Yvette D’Ath as “a failure” who should have been sacked “months ago” over Queensland’s maternity crisis.

THE state Opposition has slammed Health Minister Yvette D’Ath as “a failure” who should have been sacked “months ago” over Central Queensland’s maternity crisis.

It comes after The Sunday Mail reported expectant mums from Gladstone were so fearful of travelling to Rockhampton to give birth that they are demanding elective C-sections, and that the crisis had been labelled “a national disgrace”.

Queensland Health Minister Yvette D'Ath addressing the media on Sunday. Picture: NCA NewsWire / Josh Woning

“What we’re seeing today is mothers in Gladstone have little choice, the only choices they have is to have a caesarean-section which they may or may not need medically, or run the risk of giving birth on the side of the road,” LNP health spokeswoman Ros Bates said.

“What sort of choice and what sort of state are we now living in that that is now what mothers in Gladstone are forced to deal with every day?”

Ms Bates questioned why Gladstone Hospital could not recruit extra staff to ease the crisis.

“Is it because the doctors have no faith in the Queensland Health system at the moment or the Minister presiding over all of it?” LNP leader David Crisafulli said regional mothers were being forced to play “Russian roulette” by driving to Rockhampton to have their baby, risking a roadside birth.

“Surely in the modern era we shouldn’t be pulling services away from major centres, we should be improving them,” he said.

“It’s been 100 days since the local MP (Glenn Butcher, who is also Minister for Regional Development and Manufacturing) said he would resign if it wasn’t fixed and it’s been six months since the hospital went on bypass and still mums can’t give birth in the city.” Acting Premier Steven Miles on Sunday could not confirm when Gladstone Hospital would come off bypass.

The Sunday Mail spoke to mothers who were petrified they would not make the 100km journey to Rockhampton in time and were now taking the drastic action.

Obstetrics advocates say Queensland Health’s failure to reinstate full maternity services in Gladstone has forced women to make impossible choices as they are “devastated at the options on offer”.

Between January 1 and July 7 last year, Queensland Health recorded 30 elective caesarean births in Gladstone. Since the full maternity bypass began on July 8, the hospital has recorded 20 elective C-sections up to January 13, it says.

But Health Minister Yvette D’Ath only allowed those planned procedures to resume three months ago, on October 14. Gladstone, which looked after 900 women antenatally last year, is now offering elective C-sections but on limited days as other women continue to be sent to Rockhampton, the new epicentre of maternity in the region.

The Sunday Mail had spoken to mothers who were petrified they would not make the 100km journey to Rockhampton in time.