Thursday, 30 October 2025

 Georgie PURCELL (Northern Victoria) (23:31): (2077) My adjournment is for the Minister for Health, and it relates to maternity care in Victoria. Recently I met with Jess and Rowie, who both work as doulas and have a range of experience supporting people giving birth. We discussed the challenges and opportunities for maternity care in Victoria, and we particularly discussed the importance of relationship-based care, such as continuity of midwifery care, globally considered to be the gold standard. Those receiving continuity of care report more positive experiences during pregnancy, labour and postpartum. Midwifery group practice has been shown to cost 22 per cent less than other models of public maternity care. Increasing the proportion of those accessing midwifery group practice to 40 per cent has the potential to save the government $132 million per year. Due to my high-risk status, I have been fortunate enough to receive continuity of care myself throughout my pregnancy, but most people are not so lucky. In 2023 only 5 per cent of Victorians had access to midwifery continuity of care, compared to almost 20 per cent in Queensland. People receiving maternity care in Victoria largely experience fragmented care. Few know the midwives attending their births, and even fewer are offered any post-natal care, which can often leave birthing people feeling very vulnerable. The 2022 national core maternity indicators show Victoria’s maternity care is more medicalised than other parts of Australia without necessarily contributing to better maternal outcomes. Midwifery also has the second lowest retention rate in the health workforce. The government has acknowledged the need to address workforce challenges and improve service delivery in maternity care, and in October of last year it commissioned a taskforce to report and make recommendations on these issues. The taskforce aimed to deliver an interim report to the government at the halfway point of this year, a report which I have been told has been delivered to the minister. I have been contacted by many involved in the maternity sector who are incredibly eager to ensure that this is not just another report that gathers dust on a desk. So the action I seek is for the minister to update the house on the work of the Victorian Maternity Taskforce.