Moving maternity services away from Bentley Hospital is “logical”, Western Australia’s Health Minister Kim Hames has said, amid unhappiness over plans to stop delivering babies at the facility.
Earlier this week, the State Government released a review led by senior obstetrician Con Michael that found the safety of caesarean deliveries at the hospital in Perth’s south-east could not be guaranteed, and there were no senior staff rostered on after hours.
While Dr Hames rejected concerns over safety, maternity staff at Bentley Hospital are set to be offered the chance to relocate to the new Fiona Stanley Hospital as part of a move to expand the number of babies delivered there.
A firm timeframe has yet to be put on the closure of maternity services at Bentley.
Dr Hames said he would liaise with staff to discuss the possibility of continued post-natal and anti-natal services at Bentley, but insisted moving maternity services to Fiona Stanley was best for patients.
“At Fiona Stanley Hospital we have a brand new maternity ward operating extremely well, except one of the difficulties there is we don’t have the sufficient staff to do the expansion,” Dr Hames told State Parliament.
“Just down the road [at Bentley] we have a maternity unit that is old and tired, although functioning very well. So it is just logical that when those staff and those specialists move to the new centre the patients move with them.
“We don’t have the staff there, so the patients are having to stay at Bentley when they have a far better quality of service in terms of the facilities at Fiona Stanley.”
Dr Hames admitted there was significant staff unhappiness about the decision, but said he would liaise with employees about the future of services at Bentley.
He was also questioned over comments earlier this year that if people “voted with their feet”, he would keep maternity services at Bentley, but attributed the high number of births at the facility this year to restrictions on who could attend Fiona Stanley