Midwives' burn-out closes Dargaville maternity unit

By BRIDGET CARTER

Dargaville Hospital's maternity unit has been abruptly shut because exhausted midwives can no longer cope with the workload.

The hospital, the latest victim of a rural staffing crisis, has been unable to recruit enough midwives to do the work.

The hospital's operations manager, Janet Smart, said the situation had become more urgent in the past year as midwives had left and extensive recruitment efforts had failed to find replacements.

Kaipara midwife Alana Williams said the sudden closure came after two women - one whose uterus had to be removed to stop her bleeding - had to be rushed to Whangarei Hospital because of severe staff shortages.

"They were both gravely at risk of losing their lives."

Both mothers have since been moved from Whangarei Hospital's intensive care unit to the post-natal ward, where they are recovering with their babies.

The closure comes nearly 12 months after caesarean surgery was suspended at Kaitaia Hospital because of staff shortages.

This week the maternity unit at the Clevely Health Centre in Feilding was closed temporarily after efforts to find extra midwives failed.

The chairwoman of the Northland branch of the New Zealand College of Midwives, Donna Collins, said Dargaville's problems were another huge blow to rural services.

"Yet again it is rural women who are now going to have to travel to Whangarei."

Maternity services were important for Dargaville where about 100 women give birth each year.

People living a two-hour drive up the Kaipara coast faced "massive distances" trying to get to Whangarei.

"It is inappropriate when you are in labour," Ms Collins said.

Mrs Williams said that midwife shortages were spread through the country, but they were most severe in Dargaville and Feilding.

She said that the temporary closure of the Dargaville unit had come almost as a relief, because those still working there were burnt out after trying to cover the shortages.

"I left home on Tuesday evening and haven't been home yet," she said yesterday.

The region had two full-time midwives and needed four.

The district's only qualified obstetrician was on a three-month holiday and had not been replaced.

"For safety's sake it [the closure] is a very wise decision. But the length of time women are going to have to take to travel from Dargaville to Whangarei is going to be dangerous."

Mrs Williams said before services resumed at Dargaville, an inquiry should be launched into the latest two cases.

But Ms Smart said that the Northland District Health Board was satisfied correct procedures were followed.

She said a meeting was held with midwives on Wednesday about the suspension of maternity services at Dargaville, which were only for low-risk births.

Nobody could say when the unit would reopen. Emergency services were unchanged.

Ms Smart said the midwives were exhausted from managing lead maternity care responsibilities and in-patient care.

The Ministry of Health's deputy director of general clinical services, Dr Colin Feek, said maintaining quality rural health services was a challenge and had been a concern for years.

It was a health board's job to manage the balancing act between providing services that were safe but also accessible.