Concern for regional Queensland's maternity services continues, with the LNP revealing that over 100 days had passed since the Gladstone Maternity unit was put on bypass, while the Biloela unit had been bypassed for 53 days as of last week.
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Gladstone MP and Regional Development Minister, Glenn Butcher, announced that he would step away from his role if birthing services were not returned to the Gladstone community after LNP Opposition Leader David Crisafulli presented the revelations to a crowded health crisis meeting in Gladstone last week.
Member for Callide Bryson Head said despite Gladstone being a major regional centre and the hospital registering 600 births on average per year, locals had been suffering due to a lack of maternity services for a significant amount of time.
Mr Head said that although the State Government released a statement last week to say that they were addressing the closure of regional maternity services and making progress to reopen facilities, it was only very minimal improvement.
"The only real announcement was that Caesarean sections by appointment would be on offer at Gladstone again, which really is not a maternity service, it's only a small part of what should be available," he said.
"They said that there's a staged approach to reopening, but they're not committing to any timelines on that, so frankly, as far as I'm concerned, until timelines are given and they set dates and targets, it was just an announcement to get the LNP off their back.
"Obviously, a big part of my campaign was fighting for maternity services to be restored in Chinchilla, and then since I've been elected, Biloela went on bypass a couple of months ago as well.
"The reality is, if the whole system's failures run that deep that Gladstone still can't have a maternity service then I will be hard pushed to get them back to Chinchilla, and get Biloela back up and running again too."
The LNP team said that more babies would be born on the side of the highway if full maternity services weren't reinstated, such as the incident that occurred last week when a mother from Ambrose, half-an-hour from Gladstone, was forced to drive the further 30 kilometres to Rockhampton, but gave birth five minutes from the hospital, on the Bruce Highway.
It's not just the closing of maternity units that are plaguing hospitals in the Central Queensland region, but also the lack health care workers, particularly given the added strain of an influx of patients from regional areas with inadequate services.
"Staff at Rockhampton are simply ready to pack up and walk off the job because of the added stress from Gladstone and and Biloela and that's what we're seeing, a broken health system where staff are not feeling appropriately supported," Mr Head said.
"Across the board, we're seeing a lot of sick leave and a lot of stress leave by our medical staff, so you've really got to ask the question, why are so many health practitioners having to take so much stress and personal leave?
"That's why the LNP is saying that we support a system that puts nurses and doctors back in charge because they're the ones qualified to be on the frontline to make decisions, and they're not able to make decisions for themselves at the moment."
