Rural mums closer to home treatment
Birth Summit told of maternity staff plan
Jonathan Coventry, 11 weeks, son of Cooktown Hospital medical superintendent Dr Natasha Coventry at the Cairns summit yesterday . CAPE York women who must travel to Cairns weeks in advance to give birth could soon stay closer to home, following a swell of support to restore rural maternity services in Far North Queensland.
Cairns yesterday held the Rural Birth Summit, hosted by the University of Queensland’s Queensland Centre for Mothers & Babies, which brought together doctors, parents, midwives and politicians such as Health Minister Lawrence Springborg to workshop maternity care issues.
Mr Springborg said he was confident Cooktown and Weipa would see delivery services reinstated, following an announcement last year on plans to reopen birthing facilities in the state.
He also announced an Australia-first program in which 50 Queensland nursing graduates would be placed in a two-year midwifery scholarship traineeship aimed at providing more midwives and enhanced birthing services for regional and rural women.
‘‘We would hope those midwives return and continue to be employed in rural areas around Queensland. Many of those people who will be chosen will come from rural and regional areas of Queensland,’’ Mr Springborg said.
The first 25 graduates will be selected from July 1 and the second group will be chosen at the end of the year, with each trainee costing the State Government about $50,000 over the two-year period.
Mum of four and Cooktown Hospital medical superintendent Dr Natasha Coventry who recently travelled to Cairns to give birth to 11-week-old Jonathan, said she was hopeful Cooktown Hospital would be able to deliver babies within 12 months, which would greatly benefit indigenous mothers who preferred to stay closer to country.
‘‘Hopevale, Wujal (Wujal) and Laura Indigenous women would all consider birthing in Cooktown as being closer to birthing on country. Their connectedness to the land is something we don’t fully appreciate and certainly it does put a real cultural cloud over birthing when it is away and in Cairns,’’ she said.
Other practical measures discussed at the summit included a fly-in obstetrician and gynaecologist.