St Helen’s Private Hospital closure: Call for state government to establish new mother and baby unit
Five months on from the shock closure of St Helen’s Private Hospital, the state government is being urged to increase support for vulnerable mothers and babies in the public health system.
Tasmania
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The state government is being urged to establish a purpose-built mother and baby unit at its proposed new Health and Wellbeing Precinct in New Town following the closure of eight mental health beds at St Helen’s Private Hospital in June.
After private provider Healthscope made the decision to sell the St Helen’s site on Macquarie St, the government responded by opening a three-bed mother and baby unit in K-Block at the Royal Hobart Hospital (RHH).
The unit is designed to provide support for mothers with mental health challenges, including postnatal depression and anxiety. Its three beds are the only mother and baby beds in the entire state.
Astrid Tiefholz, who worked as a midwife and nurse in the St Helen’s mother and baby unit prior to the hospital’s closure, said she “strongly” believed the planned Health and Wellbeing Precinct at St Johns Park presented an “ideal opportunity” for the establishment of a new purpose-built mother and baby unit.
“[It could] have … outdoor spaces and a more therapeutic environment that’s been designed for community mental health services. That would be terrific,” she said.
The government released a draft masterplan for the Health and Wellbeing Precinct in May. It is anticipated to deliver palliative care, rehabilitation, geriatric evaluation and management, alcohol and drug, and mental health services in new facilities at St Johns Park.
Ms Tiefholz, who currently works as a clinical nurse navigator for peri-natal depression and anxiety support service ForWhen, said the environment in K-Block was not suitable for treating new mums with mental health issues.
“For a lot of mothers that I work with, birth trauma is a really significant contributing factor to their mental health status, so putting them in [a similar unit to] where that trauma was experienced can be very, very traumatising to them, which is a big concern,” she said.
Ms Tiefholz said the environment at St Helen’s was “less like a hospital and more like a hotel” and it “didn’t feel so clinical”.
She said 10 inpatient mother and baby beds were needed across the state, not just in Hobart.
One in five new mums experience peri-natal depression and anxiety and Labor health spokeswoman Anita Dow said “many” families were waiting weeks “or, in some cases, months” to access mother and baby services at the RHH.
The government disputes this claim.
“It is incredibly concerning that despite the theme for this year’s Perinatal Mental Health Week being ‘connection through conversation’ that many still cannot access immediate support,” Ms Dow said.
A government spokesman said the RHH mother and baby unit was an “interim solution” and was for non-urgent planned admissions.
“As of 8 November there was one person waiting for admission to the unit,” he said.
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