Meeting of minds to improve regional maternity services

Senior healthcare professionals and government policy makers from three states and the Northern Territory will gather for a three-day workshop, starting tonight (August 24), aimed at determining how maternity services can be improved in regional and rural Australia.

The workshop, to be held at Southern Cross University’s Riverside campus in Tweed Heads, will examine the suitability for Australia of the Canadian health services delivery tool the Rural Birth Index - a mathematical model that weights key community characteristics such as population, number of births and isolation to calculate a score for the appropriate maternity service level needs for rural communities.

Principle developer of the Rural Birth Index and academic at the University of British Columbia’s Department of Family Practice Professor Stefan Grzybowski has travelled from Canada to attend the workshop and will be providing information on how the tool was developed and works overseas.

Southern Cross University Associate Professor of Midwifery Heather Hancock said the Rural Birth Index could represent an important decision-making tool for Australian rural health maternity services.

“At present many decisions on rural healthcare services are based on economic factors alone, leading to an unacceptable reduction in services in some cases,” Professor Hancock said.

“People want to see a proven model of assessment that can substantiate any changes in maternity services and the Rural Birth Index could provide that.

“It’s a modelling tool that was developed in Canada for rural communities similar to those here in Australia and it can be used to determine what basic level of maternity care is actually needed by the community before services are simply shut down.

“If the workshop finds that this is something that could be applied here in Australia, the next step could be research, which would inform policy making.”

Up to 30 maternity service leaders including representatives from the Federal Department of Health and Ageing are expected to attend the workshop. The workshop is the result of a collaboration between Southern Cross University, the Mater Hospital in Brisbane, the Australian Catholic University, the Northern Rivers University Department of Rural Health, the North Coast Medical Education Collaboration and CRANAplus.

Professor Heather Hancock said it was important that issues concerning rural maternity care in Australia were addressed effectively.

“The current approach to maternity service planning in regional areas does not always benefit women, and in some cases it creates potential harm,” she said.

“Inadequate services often force women to travel long distances to access birthing care, which can lead to unattended births at home or on the way to the hospital, a lack of support for the women before and after the birth and extreme stress and disruption to the entire family unit as the mother is separated from them to give birth at another location.

“The Rural Birth Index won’t be a panacea, but as a flexible, community-based approach it may go a long way in helping us improve in this area.”

Photo: Associate Professor Heather Hancock. Media alert: Media are invited to attend tomorrow as Stefan Grzybowski concludes his keynote speech on the development and practical application to date of the Rural Birth Index. Professor Heather Hancock and Stefan Grzybowski will be available for interview. Please report to the foyer at Southern Cross University’s Riverside campus in Brett Street Tweed Heads at 9.45am, Tuesday August 25. Note: for footage or photographs of the keynote speech in progress please arrive a few minutes earlier.