Lyell McEwin Hospital

Ms BEDFORD (Florey) (15:16): Babies are very much on my mind lately as my daughter and her husband have recently had a baby son, my third grandchild, and I thank everyone at Ashford Hospital and the medical staff who officiated at that most happy time for our family. Baby Nate joins my son and his wife's daughters, Olivia and Emily, in becoming my third grandchild, and it has reinforced to me the importance of midwives in our health services who, along with doctors, continue to make the miracle of birth as safe as possible.

This brings to mind an article I saw recently in the Leader Messenger by Daniela Abbracciavento, talking about the wonderful work being done at the Lyell McEwin Hospital, a place of excellence, which has just delivered the most babies in any year of its 55-year history. There were 3,489 babies born at the Lyell McEwin Hospital in the 2013-14 year, 31 more than the previous year's total of 3,458, and June was the hospital's busiest month ever; 325 babies were born compared with 291 during the same month in 2012-13 and 263 in 2011-12.

The hospital is the local referral point for public health patients from Redwood Park, Salisbury Heights, Para Hills and Greenwith as well as Salisbury and Playford council areas. It is also a catchment area for the Tea Tree Gully council and the areas around Florey.

The Northern Adelaide Local Health Network midwifery director Meredith Hobbs could not pinpoint an exact reason for the baby boom, but she suggested that it may be linked to new housing developments in the north attracting more residents to the area. The opening of a $34 million women's and children's health hub at the hospital in October had also boosted interest in the demand for the hospital. The hospital is now well equipped for further growth, thanks to the new neonatal unit, an extra five beds, and a new unit that deals exclusively with expectant mothers.

Ms Hobbs said that she was forced to call up about three extra midwives each shift to help cope with the hectic month of June, increasing the number of midwives in the birthing unit, and that on an average day there were eight midwives rostered on each of the three shifts in the birthing unit and normally about 17 midwives on the antenatal and postnatal wards every day over the three shifts. Extra staff are brought in whenever needed to meet the ever-changing demand for maternity services, as you certainly cannot predict when a woman is going to go into labour.

The hospital has good models of care that make mothers feel safe and at ease. They have a birthing centre model where women deal directly with midwives and only see a doctor if the pregnancy is deemed high risk. The Lyell McEwin Health Service has overtaken the Flinders Medical Centre to become second only to the Women's and Children's Hospital in delivery numbers.

Professor Gus Dekker has been synonymous with birthing services at the Lyell McEwin since my time in this place commenced, and through his pioneering Mothercarer service I have watched both it and the services at the Lyell McEwin go from strength to strength. Mothercarers took a group of young women—single mothers in some cases—and saw them undertake courses to prepare them for a supporting and service role for new mums who are released from hospital earlier than might be expected, providing both the mother and baby are doing well. Mothercarers visit those mums in their homes and undertake all sorts of duties—cleaning, cooking, or collecting older children from school—and I know this has been a very successful program for both the new mums and the mothercarers themselves. It continues to be a valuable extension of services available to mothers in the north and north-eastern suburbs.

Childbirth has been an area of great interest for me since the birth of my own children at the old Queen Victoria Hospital, before its transition to the Women's and Children's. The life-changing experience of a first birth brings home the realisation that we rely on midwives and doctors to care for us at this special and vulnerable time. Nurses and midwives do such wonderful work in their vocation, and improvements we enjoy these days are due in no small part to their commitment, dedication and contribution.

But women have a role to play in giving their babies the best possible start by ensuring they do all they can to reduce risk by cutting out things like smoking and drinking and by maintaining a healthy diet and lifestyle, for obesity is a major contributing factor to the number of caesareans being performed in the community. I quote from an article in The Advertiser on 12 May by Grant McArthur:

The issue [of obesity] has meant some hospitals have had to reduce the number of operations they perform in a day:

A new Australian study is trying to determine the impact of a mother's Body Mass Index on caesareans to help the health system cope and better support families.

The University of Melbourne's Mum Size study comes as anaesthetists are having to rewrite guidelines for administering surgical drugs to cope with the higher and more complex doses needed to sedate larger patients, as well as the escalating dangers facing obese patients in the days after surgery.

So, I can see that there is a lot of work to be done in that area to keep us all healthy and out of the health system, but also to put on the record our thanks particularly to the doctors and nurses who make sure our babies arrive as safely as possible.