St John of God Subiaco Hospital limits maternity deliveries after reaching full capacity

Expectant mothers wanting to go private have been dealt a further blow with yet another hospital limiting its maternity services after reaching capacity. St John of God Subiaco is the latest hospital to curtail its maternity services and will not accept new bookings for deliveries in September, October, and November. It is the third time in the last eight months that St John of God Health Care has limited maternity services across its hospitals in WA. SJOG Subiaco Hospital chief executive Tina Chinery said the hospital had experienced a “significant increase in demand for maternity services this year”. “We understand this may be disappointing, however, we expect the impact to be limited as there is only a small number of individuals who seek to make a maternity booking in the last months of their pregnancy,” she said. Ms Chinery said ensuring patient and staff safety and wellbeing “remains our top priority and the decision to limit planned birth services was made in consultation with our obstetricians and midwives.” “We aim to balance our commitment to high-quality, safe patient care with managing the workload for our midwifery team.” She said private maternity bookings were still available for new patients at the SJOG Murdoch Hospital in the months ahead. The three-month freeze on new patients at Subiaco comes after SJOG Health Care transferred its Mt Lawley obstetric services to the hospital from December 20, 2023. The service cited a drop in admissions and workforce struggles as the reason for the Mt Lawley Hospital no longer delivering babies. SJOG’s Bunbury maternity ward also closed in June this year, claiming the decision was due to ongoing challenges in delivering private obstetric care in the South West, including a chronic shortage of employed midwives and a lack of obstetricians. Just a month prior to that Margaret River Hospital transferred maternity services — except for low-risk pregnancies — to Busselton and Bunbury hospitals. Ms Chinery said she hoped a planned expansion of the Subiaco Hospital would alleviate capacity issues. “In the longer term, we hope the new state-of-the-art mother and baby centre, which is part of the planned redevelopment, will alleviate these capacity issues,” Ms Chinery said. “We can reassure those who are already booked for deliveries from September to November that their appointments and planned admission are not impacted and will proceed as scheduled.” A $311 million expansion of St John of God Subiaco Hospital was given the go-ahead in May 2023, and is set to include a new eight-storey clinical facility with a new “world-class mother and baby centre”. The expansion will also feature a new neonatal intensive care unit, new emergency obstetric operating theatre, 10 birth suites, and larger patient rooms in pre-and post-natal wards.