The special care nursery at St Vincent’s Private Hospital Toowoomba won’t be back at full capacity until late November.
A shortage of special care nurses has led to the temporary closure of the special care nursery at St Vincent’s Private Hospital Toowoomba, with the unit not expected to be running at full capacity until late November.
The hospital closed the nursery for a week in September and will continue to provide reduced bed capacity for newborns with limited care needs.
For babies with higher needs or monitoring, they may be transferred to Toowoomba Base Hospital or other private and public hospitals in Ipswich, Brisbane or the Gold Coast.
A St Vincent’s Private Hospital Toowoomba spokesperson told Health Services Daily:
“During this time, five babies have been transferred to other hospitals including Toowoomba Base Hospital and in Brisbane to receive the higher level of care they needed. Three of the babies were returned to our care after a short period. Of the total of 72 babies delivered in the past month, 67 remained at St Vincent’s Private Hospital Toowoomba, receiving all care in our hospital.
“The current expectation is that the reduced service in our Special Care Nursery will remain in place until late November, as we continue to recruit more members to our highly regarded team. St Vincent’s has been undertaking a national and international search for special care nurses over the past 12-18 months.”
The Queensland Nurses and Midwives’ Union has been working closely with the service over the workplace concerns.
QNMU Secretary Sarah Beaman told HSD:
“We have met with St Vincent’s Hospital executives, and we are aware of the skilled workforce shortage that is currently leading to an over reliance on their existing skilled staff.
“Additional issues around excessive overtime have been escalated with hospital executives who are working closely with the QNMU to resolve these matters.”
RANZCOG President-Elect Dr Nisha Khot said many maternity hospitals were experiencing the impact of a critical national shortage of skilled special care nursery staff.
“Often what we find is that when a maternity unit is closing, it doesn’t have to do with staffing, specifically of the maternity unit. It often has to do with staffing of either the special care nursery, or anaesthetic staffing, or theatre staffing,” she said.
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According to Katharine Bassett, director of Health at Catholic Health Australia, this shortage is particularly acute in regional Australia.
“The situation at St Vincent’s in Toowoomba is part of a national trend that has seen 18 private maternity wards close since 2018,” she said.
“Regional and rural communities are losing access to safe, local maternity care, and families are being shunted into overstretched public hospitals.
“These closures are driven by chronic shortages of specialists, including anaesthetists and paediatricians, and by a funding system that makes private care too costly for many families.
“We urgently need national reform, including incentives to draw health workers to regional centres, greater scope for midwives to manage routine care, and the removal of absurd funding barriers that leave families facing thousands of dollars in out-of-pocket bills.
“Without this, more wards will shut, more communities will be abandoned, and more women will be left with no real choice in how they give birth.”