Dr Samantha Goss has spoken of cutting her work hours because of lack of after school care

For many parents it is a struggle to get before and after school care for their children. A local GP moved home after eight years to solve the problem.

Care for Kids will host an Australian first virtual open day for parents looking to educate themselves on early childhood learning centres. Topics covered will be sleep, behaviour, managing sickness, school readiness and learning styles and care types. Picture: iStock

A Hobart GP has told how a lack of before and after school care for her children forced her to cut back her working hours and reluctantly relocate from her eastern shore home.

Dr Samantha Goss, who lived at Lindisfarne for eight years, said it was a “constant stress” to access the care she needed so she had to shorten her working hours.

“I managed to get one day a week in before school care quite easily, but it took me about six months or so to get a place in after school care for my son. This meant that I couldn’t actually work in that time,” she said.

“The hours that I couldn’t do to be able to care for my children, I think I wasn’t able to look after my patients as well.

“I was always thinking about how I was going to structure my work day to fit in with all of the timing and then the stress that my patients experience not being able to see me in a timely way fashion because my hours were so limited.”

Dr Samantha Goss and Labor finance spokesman Luke Edmunds discuss the impacts of a lack of before and after school care on Hobart's Eastern Shore. Picture: Supplied.

As a single parent with no family supports in Hobart, Dr Goss said while she was on a waiting list for care and had paid someone to pick up her son after school before deciding to move.

“It’s just basically a constant juggle to try and get the timing right and ultimately that became too much for me and I realised that I had to move in order to reduce the stress.”

Dr Goss said colleagues in the health sector faced similar care challenges and also had to shorten their hours or work.

Labor finance spokesman Luke Edmunds said Tasmania had the lowest availability of childcare in the country and a lack of access to before and after school care places was having “a negative impact economically, socially and on people’s health and wellbeing”.

“I’ve had forums in my office where we’ve had dozens of families coming forward sharing their story about the frustrations they’ve had around accessing before and after school care and childcare in general on the Eastern Shore,” he said.

“The lack of access to after school care meant Samantha had to reduce her patient load, placing further stress on Tasmania’s health system.”

Luke Edmunds Labor member for Pembroke. TT-Line Spirits Project inquiry at parliament house Hobart. Picture: Nikki Davis-Jones

Mr Edmunds said many families were missing out and urged the state government ad councils to take advantage of federal government funding to open up more places.

“We know that every place we create is more money in the economy, more money people’s pockets, more money to help put kids through school, pay for footy boots etc.”

Government minister Nick Duigan said Education Minister Jo Palmer was working on make more places available in before and after school care.

Originally published as Dr Samantha Goss has spoken of cutting her work hours because of lack of after school care