Maternity probe reveals birthing chaos, shock staff shortage

The government’s 100-day-plan commitment to investigate staffing levels in regional Queensland maternity services has discovered a shocking shortage of obstetricians, anaesthetists and midwives.

Minister for Health and Ambulance Services Tim Nicholls. Picture: Patrick Woods.

The Crisafulli Government’s 100-day-plan commitment to investigate staffing levels in regional Queensland maternity services has discovered the shocking shortage of obstetricians, anaesthetists and midwives that led birthing services into crisis during the Labor government.

The probe revealed workforce shortages of between 11.5 per cent and 17.91 per cent for key maternity professions across the regions, which resulted in rural hospitals sending labouring mothers on dangerous journeys along highways to larger facilities sometimes hundreds of kilometres away.

The Courier-Mail has reported many occasions where lives were at risk when women were unable to have their babies close to home.

Gladstone Hospital maternity services were on bypass for almost a year due to lack of safe levels of staffing. The closed doors resulted in horror stories of a woman almost dying in the hospital car park, women free birthing to avoid the long journey on the Bruce Highway to Rockhampton while in labour and families travelling as far as Brisbane to have their babies.

Since July 1 2023, eight facilities have experienced periods of birthing bypass, including Biloela and Cooktown Hospitals which have been on birthing bypass since 2022.

Between July 1 2023 and January 8 2025, eight facilities in regional and rural Queensland experienced periods of birthing bypass, including Beaudesert Hospital (26 instances) Ingham Health Service (22 instances) and Mareeba Hospital (12 instances).

The LNP probe has found that there are staffing vacancies of up to 14.2 per cent in obstetrics, 17.9 per cent in anaesthetics and 11.5 per cent in midwifery, with some facilities experiencing vacancy rates far above these numbers.

Health Minister Tim Nicholls said that poor planning had forced repeated and prolonged closure of many regional birthing services.

“This assessment has highlighted the significant gaps in staffing levels across these professions and the data demonstrates the impacts of workforce shortages and maldistribution affect regional Queenslanders far more than their metropolitan counterparts,” Mr Nicholls said

“The Crisafulli Government is committed to delivering quality health services closer to home for regional Queenslanders, including birthing services,” he said.

The assessment of services included Atherton, Innisfail, Mareeba, Biloela, Emerald, Longreach, Goondiwindi, Kingaroy, Stanthorpe, Warwick, Dalby, Proserpine, Beaudesert, Gympie, Charleville, Roma, St George, Cooktown, Thursday Island, Weipa, Ayr and Ingham.

Larger facilities like Rockhampton, Gladstone, Toowoomba, Mackay, Caboolture, Redcliffe, Redland, Mt Isa, Bundaberg, Hervey Bay and Ipswich were all assessed.

“Without our hardworking health professionals across obstetrics, anaesthetics and midwifery, we cannot deliver and maintain birthing services in regional facilities,” the health minister said.

Originally published as Maternity probe reveals birthing chaos, shock staff shortage