Tuesday, 8 March 2022

Angliss Hospital maternity ward lift

Ms BURNETT-WAKE (Eastern Victoria) (19:52): (1793) My adjournment request is directed to the Minister for Health, and the action that I seek is for the lift servicing the maternity ward at the Angliss Hospital in Upper Ferntree Gully to be replaced as an immediate priority. Eastern Health announced late last Thursday evening via Facebook that all maternity services at the Angliss would cease, effective immediately. This Facebook post was the first time expectant mothers who were booked into the Angliss were informed they would now need to travel and give birth at Box Hill. The reason given? A faulty lift in the hospital. Access to the maternity services at the Angliss requires a lift to be in operation to allow expectant mothers to receive appropriate care. I am advised that the lift is the quickest way to get patients into theatre from the maternity ward when an emergency C-section and other time-sensitive procedures are required.

An article published today by Melissa Meehan for the Australian Associated Press says women in labour have recently been carried down flights of stairs at the Angliss for emergency caesareans due to a broken lift. What is most concerning, however, is a line that says:

… staff at Angliss hospital … have been practising lifting and sliding a stretcher using a system of ropes to get to an operating theatre.

There are also confirmed reports of pregnant women being winched down to the lower level. This lift has been unreliable for quite some time, which is appalling for a health service in 2022. Expectant mothers who were booked into the Angliss to give birth within days found out that they would now be travelling to Box Hill, through this Facebook announcement. The comments were filled with expectant mothers concerned about the time it would take to get to Box Hill whilst in the throes of labour and not making it in time. Other mothers commented about times they had found themselves stuck in this lift with a newborn.

I am not here to criticise the staff at Eastern Health. They are doing the best they can with the resources they have. However, I do believe the extra stress these women are now facing is a direct result of underfunding of the hospital system by the Andrews Labor government. Why was the lift not repaired when it first became unreliable? This situation could have been prevented if action was taken earlier. If staff have been practising roping women down the stairs, there has surely been enough time to have the lift repaired. For these women the trip to Box Hill might be up to an hour—instead of 10 minutes to the local Angliss—depending on where they live. The Angliss is the closest hospital to the majority of towns in the wider Dandenongs and foothills area.

There has been no indication of how long maternity services will be cancelled other than ‘It will take some time’. I cannot help but worry that women will be jam-packed into beds wherever they can find them at Box Hill and not in a purpose-built maternity ward. Expecting the Box Hill campus to somehow cater for another hospital’s entire maternity ward is absurd. There will be compromises to care somewhere along the line. Birth is a stressful time for expectant mothers and their families. They deserve a level of care that is currently not being met by the Labor government. I call on the minister to have the lift in the maternity ward at the Angliss fixed as a matter of urgency and priority.