John MacDonald: Farewell St George's. You'll be missed

Canterbury Mornings with John MacDonald

If you’re a parent or a grandparent in Canterbury, chances are you’ll be familiar with St George’s Hospital - which runs a birthing unit and provides post-natal care.

Not for much longer, though. Nine weeks from now, it will be all over because they can’t get enough midwives to run things safely. Which is going to be a real kick in the guts for the thousands who signed a petition to keep things going there.

And all the people who joined-in on a march to the hospital when the petition was presented to the honchos at St George’s.

That was in March/April last year, after word got out that the services at the hospital could be at-risk. And, as a result of all that, St George’s agreed to keep running maternity services until the end of its contract. And now it’s been confirmed that, come the end of June, that’ll be it.

So, in a way, not a surprise. But it will be gutting nonetheless for the women who fought to keep the unit operating, gutting for the women who are expecting a baby beyond June and now have to work out what options they’ve got, and gutting for the thousands of people in Canterbury who have used St George’s maternity services over the years.

I remember the night our daughter was born 20 years ago. She arrived safely at 5:20 in the evening at the old Christchurch Women’s Hospital and, then later that same night, we were cleared to transfer for the standard two-or-three night’s care at St George’s.

I had never driven as carefully and slowly and safely as I did that August night. It was pouring with rain and I remember not quite being overwhelmed, but the sense of responsibility to get that little bundle in the back seat safely up to St George’s really brought home the enormity of it all.

But, 20 years on from then, and who knows how many babies delivered and mothers cared for during that time, and we are about to see the end of St George’s maternity care.

I was actually in the maternity ward at St George’s the other night visiting someone recovering from surgery. It was just as quiet and peaceful as I remember it. There was the odd little squawk - but it reminded me how much of a godsend the midwives and staff at St Georges were for us, and how missed the maternity unit will be when it closes at the end of June.

Because, once that happens, parents will have to go somewhere else to have their babies and receive post-natal care.

A new central city birthing unit is due to open in Christchurch at the end of this year. But between the end of June and the end of the year, parents will have to find somewhere else to go.

Which, for most, will mean some of the smaller rural hospitals around the place. Which probably won’t be the end of the world but is this really how we should be treating young families?

The way it operates is women can choose to give birth at a hospital, a primary birthing unit such as St George’s - providing they’re healthy with no pregnancy complications - or at home.

But with the shortage of midwives, what’s been happening is that St George’s has found itself in having to send mothers with newborn babies home early and, you may recall, a situation where it even had to turn away a woman who was in labour.

At the same time, Christchurch Women’s Hospital was full and she ended-up having to go to Rangiora and her midwife missed the birth by five minutes because of the unexpected extra travel time.

If you’re a parent, you’ll know how devastating that situation would have been.

And so you can’t argue with St George’s when it says it just can’t keep operating like that. There’s a shortage of midwives and it doesn’t want to put women and babies at risk by just continuing on hoping things work out.

If it did that and something went bad as a result, we’d be all over them demanding answers wouldn’t we?

So I’m not blaming St George’s for this. Where the blame lies in all of this is the fact that we have allowed the likes of maternity services to bumble along and keep our fingers crossed that it all works out.

I’m talking about successive governments, health boards and probably you and me as well. Sure, 30,000 people signed the petition last year but really, when it comes down to it, we only really think about the likes of maternity services when we need them, don’t we?

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