Toowoomba Hospital maternity review fails to answer mother's concerns

Toowoomba Hospital maternity review fails to answer mother's concerns In short: A five-page summary report on longstanding concerns at Toowoomba Hospital's maternity unit was released yesterday. Queensland Health says it does not routinely publish full reports because of "legal, privacy, ethical, and confidentiality obligations". What's next? The opposition is calling for Queensland Health to release the full report and conduct a "Part 9 Investigation". For Ashleigh Hills, the joy of the first few weeks with her newborn baby boy were diminished by a traumatic birth. "It's something I'm still dealing with every day," she said. "I feel like it really probably took away a lot of the joy of having a newborn and those first early weeks and what that should be like." Ms Hills is one of the mothers who participated in an assurance review of the Toowoomba Hospital's maternity unit, following years of complaints about its services. A five-page summary of the report was released yesterday, indicating that while progress was underway, several longstanding issues had not been resolved. Queensland Health commissioned the review in February, with a focus on addressing how complaints were handled in the maternity unit. A traumatic birth Last year, Ms Hills said she was sent home from the Toowoomba Hospital after doctors told her she was not in labour yet. She said she spent the next 24 hours at home in labour, before going back to the hospital. Baby Austin was later born via an emergency caesarean section, and the doctors discovered Ms Hills had developed a rare condition called Bandl's ring. "So basically, my uterus had formed a constriction ring around Austin," she said. "Everyone was yelling. It was just really scary, and there's no chance for anyone to explain if I'm OK, if baby's OK." Ms Hills believed she developed the condition due to prolonged obstructed labour. "They tried to get Austin out multiple times and they couldn't … ended up having to pull him out by his feet," she said. After the birth, the first-time mother noticed a lump on her baby's head, which was assessed several times by hospital staff. When Austin was two weeks old, their GP confirmed he had a fractured skull. "He could have suffered brain damage … he could have needed surgery,"Ms Hills said. In the days after her birth, her GP also discovered Ms Hills had pre-eclampsia, which she said had been missed by the emergency department. Ms Hills said Austin was seven months old when she finally got a meeting with the hospital, after several failed attempts. "I think it just would have been nice to have felt listened to in some of those situations," she said. Review into maternity unit The recent report was prepared by independent experts who examined the hospital's response to five previous reviews since 2018. Darling Downs Health Service chief executive Annette Scott said the hospital was acting on 117 recommendations, but it was a continual process. She said the report found deficits in the complaints process and it was "unacceptable" for complaints not to be followed up with. "I don't want that on my watch at all," she said. "If things are getting lost then we need to learn from that because that is not fair on them and it's not fair on the staff here." Ms Scott said the hospital has appointed a new director of obstetrics, improved the hospital's midwife vacancy rate, and improved training and education. In a statement, Health Minister Tim Nicholls said the review found there were recommendations from reviews dating back to 2018 that were incomplete. "The Darling Downs Health Service must now focus on delivering the recommendations made, ensuring women and families can have confidence in the maternity care they receive at Toowoomba Hospital," he said. Calls for a 'Part 9 Investigation' Shadow Health Minister Mark Bailey said it was an insult to the parents involved, that only a five-page report was released. "The full report should absolutely be released and made public," he said. "There is so much important material to cover and there is so much that needs to be done to overcome what has been an appalling situation." A Queensland Health spokesperson said its reports were not routinely published in full because of "legal, privacy, ethical, and confidentiality obligations". Mr Bailey said the opposition was calling for a Part 9 Investigation, a high-level inquiry commissioned under the Hospital and Health Boards Act. "[It] is a much more comprehensive root and branch investigation with some independence," he said. "We stand with the mothers who have been affected in this regard, because all they want is firstly the truth to be acknowledged and they want it never to happen again to any other parents on the Darling Downs." Going into the review, Ms Hills said she did not realise it was mainly focused on the complaints process. "I do think it needs to be looked at, but I think there are bigger issues," she said. "It would be great if that Part 9 Investigation was able to happen so that we could get to the bottom of what was really going on."