Thursday, 9 March 2023

Maternal and child health services

Brad BATTIN (Berwick) (17:09): (95) My adjournment tonight is for the Minister for Health, and it is in relation to the maternal healthcare network, particularly down in Berwick. The action I seek is for the Minister for Health to come out and meet with some of the parents who are struggling to get appointments in relation to their maternal and child health care. I met up with some mums recently. We met down in Clyde North, talking about some of the issues with access and getting appointments in the maternal and child healthcare network after they have a child and some of the challenges that they are facing, which include getting appointments. Some of them have even complained about not being informed correctly of how to go about meeting up with, getting in contact with or getting a call from maternal health once they do have a child. Obviously, with the parents of a firstborn versus parents of second, third and fourth children there is a difference in expectations in your mind about what you can deal with and how you can handle that, but a first-time mother may face some challenges in knowing who they can reach out to.

Some of the things that were raised down there were concerns about getting referrals to GPs and being told that the only way to actually get any assistance at all would be to go to a GP. There is a lack of availability for appointments, particularly through Casey. We know Casey is a fast-growing corridor, but a lot of the parents down there are concerned about getting that access into those appointments down there at the time or having those appointments cancelled as close as an hour or two before the appointment is to occur; the mothers would be on their way, may have changed plans for the day and would be having their appointment cancelled. Some of them have not been able to get the one-year-old appointment, which has been a big concern for them. And a couple of mothers have raised issues particularly where a young child has actually got developmental issues that they were not aware of that would have been picked up in the maternal and health appointment, but because they could not get to the appointment, they did not do that.

Some mothers now have been told by Casey that they do not have to have it in Casey and can go to other jurisdictions for it, so they are now actually travelling down to places like Somerville or going across to Cardinia. As we would understand, that is also going to put pressure on other areas with the number of mothers coming through Casey at the moment. They have got some other concerns now. One mother who approached us said she cannot get an offer for an eight-week appointment; they cannot even get in for that eight-week contact, and we all know how important it is. Another concern they have raised is that by missing these appointments they are not getting informed about kinder dates. We know with the changes in kinder and the changes of dates and time lines in kinder this is causing a lot of issues for them down there. They have got consistency issues around childcare fees as well.

Another very important topic – the Minister for Health I am sure will address this – is in relation to domestic violence. If you go into a maternal health appointment, it is an opportunity to speak freely, generally without someone who could be a perpetrator of domestic violence, and they could pick up on extra issues. So I do ask the minister – and I would be more than happy to assist – to come down and meet these parents, not in a political way but to see if we can fix some of these problems for the parents in the area.