Full maternity services now available at St John of God Geraldton hospital after five-month suspension

Full maternity services have returned to Geraldton’s only private hospital after a shortage of midwives forced it to temporarily suspend the services five months ago. St John of God Hospital CEO Phillip Balmer said maternity services had been gradually reinstated, with the full suite of services resuming from Wednesday. The midwife shortage was in part due to vaccination issues, Mr Balmer previously confirmed. “We are delighted that we can reinstate this service which was first established in 1938, and continue supporting our community with safe, high quality maternity care,” he said. “While we recognised the importance of a private local maternity service and the strong support of the community, our priority was to ensure any service was safe and high quality. “Once we were confident we had a skilled and experienced maternity team in place we reopened a post-natal service in January, and as our workforce expanded we were able to support planned births from early February. I’m pleased that we now have sufficient staff to relaunch the full service.” The maternity ward was temporarily suspended last November, with expectant parents forced to either divert to Geraldton Health Campus or have their baby in Perth. Mr Balmer thanked the WA Country Health Service for its ongoing support and said SJOG had introduced a range of measures to avoid any potential closures in the future due to midwifery issues. “There is a shortage of health care workers across the country and many hospitals are struggling to recruit,” he said. “We have steps in place to address midwifery shortages. We are working with Geraldton University Campus to support the provision of a local midwifery training program in conjunction with Curtin University and Charles Darwin University. “We are also part of St John of God Health Care’s Statewide midwifery training program run through Notre Dame University.” SJOG Geraldton Hospital clinical director and obstetrician Sara Armitage said reinstating the service was a great benefit to the Mid West community. “It is so encouraging and positive to have St John of God Geraldton Hospital maternity birthing options, which are highly valued in our community, back in place,” she said.