News
15 February, 2025
Birthing crisis
A critical assessment into regional maternity services commissioned by the State Government’s has revealed a crisis in the regional birthing workforce, with workforce shortages rising between 11.5 per cent and 17.9 per cent for key maternity professions across regional Queensland.
Profession-wide, there are staffing vacancies of up to 14.2 per cent in obstetrics, 17.9 per cent in anaesthetics, and 11.5 per cent in midwifery, with some facilities experiencing vacancy rates far above this. The lack of skilled maternity staff led to rural hospitals sending birthing mothers to larger facilities, often hundreds of kilometres away.
The assessment considered facilities that are most at risk of temporary closure of birthing services resulting from workforce shortages. These are sites designated as Clinical Services Capability Framework (CSCF) Maternity Module level 3 and 4 (33 sites), with Caboolture, Ipswich, Redcliffe, Kingaroy, Dalby, and Roma being named.
Between 1 July 2023 and 8 January 2025, eight facilities in regional and rural Queensland experienced periods of birthing bypass, including Beaudesert Hospital, Ingham Health Service and Mareeba Hospital.
Birthing services within Queensland Health facilities are provided by a maternity team that comprises, at a minimum, clinicians who specialise in obstetrics, clinicians who specialise in anaesthetics, and midwives. Obstetric skills are provided by either a general practitioner obstetrician, rural generalist obstetrician or specialist obstetrician. Anaesthetic skills are provided by general practitioner anaesthetists, rural generalist anaesthetists or specialist anaesthetists.
The assessment focused on these three core professional areas because all birthing services currently require these core groups for services to be maintained.
Minister for Health and Ambulance Services, Tim Nicholls, said without health professionals across obstetrics, anaesthetics and midwifery, delivery and birthing services in regional facilities could not be maintained.
“The assessment has highlighted the significant gaps in staffing levels across these professions; the data demonstrates the impacts of workforce shortages and maldistribution affect regional Queenslanders far more than their metropolitan counterparts,” he said.
“The State Government is committed to ensuring the sustainable delivery of rural birthing services and is working to develop a homegrown health workforce strategy to train and hire the clinicians needed for the next decade.”
