HOSPITAL FORCED TO TURN AWAY EXPECTANT MUMS

Pregnant woman booked to be induced in hospital sent home, twice

Aheavily pregnant woman scheduled to be induced was twice was turned away by Auckland Hospital because of a bed shortage, prompting an apology from hospital bosses.

The woman was among several victims of a spike in demand from expectant mothers, coupled with strikes by midwives an junior doctors.

The pregnant woman was at full term — 40 weeks gestation — and was booked to be induced when she arrived at hospital and was sent home.

At a rescheduled appointment she was sent home again and placed under monitoring.

An Auckland District Health Board spokeswoman said there had been no change to the capacity of its maternity services. “However, this week we have experienced a spike in demand, particularly from women needing urgent hospital birthing services.”

The DHB activated its standard response, which involved rescheduling on the basis of clinical need.

“This means some appointments were rescheduled for women who could safely be deferred, to prioritise patients requiring acute or urgent care. We apologise to all women whose appointments have been deferred to enable us to provide safe care, and thank them for their understanding.”

The spokeswoman said strike action this week by midwives and junior doctors had added complication to its scheduling, but extensive contingency planning had ensured the safety of patients.

New Zealand College of Midwives chief executive Alison Eddy said the sector was under increasing strain because of a midwifery shortage nationally.

“Wider Auckland city is struggling with recruitment and midwives are choosing not to work full hours because of the pay and conditions, which is partly what the strike was about.

“That could possibly be impacting on the services they can provide, because they need to make sure they can provide services safely.”

Eddy said post-date pregnancy inductions were not necessarily urgent.

“If mother and baby are well, a day or two delay is not a clinical concern. So they are obviously prioritising their work and making sure they’re providing the care to women that have got vulnerable pregnancies or medical complications that need more urgent care.”

She said a tertiary hospital delivery suite was similar to an emergency department in that it could not predict the number of patients presenting. For example, a woman might go into premature labour or suffer emergency complications.

“Generally in the labour ward you’ll have a certain number of women booked in for a post-date induction each day and that really is often around availability of beds.”

While a delay could be a major inconvenience for women, urgent cases had to be prioritised and Eddy said being delayed was not an unusual situation.

“I completely understand why women get distressed because they had a plan . . . but DHBs are working within the resources they’ve got.”

More than 1100 district health board-employed midwives held rolling strikes last week and in November to be able to negotiate separate pay and working conditions from nurses. An offer is expected to be formalised soon.

If mother and baby are well, a day or two delay is not a clinical concern. So they are obviously prioritising their work . . . New Zealand College of Midwives chief executive Alison Eddy