Auckland mothers and sick babies face move south

By MARTIN JOHNSTON, health reporter

Up to 60 mothers and their sick or premature newborns are expected to be transferred out of Auckland while health services are rejigged.

Hospital planners say one or two mothers and their babies may have to transfer each week from June to December, some to Waikato Hospital but others as far as Christchurch.

Maternity Services Consumer Council co-ordinator Lynda Williams yesterday warned against shifting mothers and some of the country's most fragile newborns.

"It would be a disaster for women and their families. Surely they [the hospitals] can do something about it for those seven months."

She knew of marriages that had crumbled after suffering the stress of the wife being sent to another region with a second baby while the husband struggled to look after a toddler and run a business.

In June, National Women's Hospital will shift into the new Auckland City Hospital. By December, the present 59 cots for sick or premature babies will have been reduced to 46.

But the number in the region will rise from 81 to 100 through increases at Middlemore Hospital and the addition of a special-care baby unit at Waitakere Hospital.

National Women's general manager, Kay Hyman, said transfers were undesirable because of the stress created by being away from the family's home region - on top of the stress of childbirth.

But it was a temporary problem, she said. After cot numbers increased, transfers out of the region should become a rarity.

National Women's had transferred no one for several months. Its highest rate of transfers was before Christmas 2002, when 10 mothers and their newborns were moved in a short period.

The hospital can exceed its usual capacity at present, enabling it to manage peaks in regional and national demand. But it loses most of this flexibility in the new hospital, which has a fixed number of cots.

Mrs Hyman said Middlemore and North Shore Hospital's neonatal units could not take any extra babies.

Auckland District Health Board chairman Wayne Brown told a board committee meeting that transfers of mothers and babies were not entirely bad.

"It just means we're utilising things properly."

Chief executive Garry Smith said the potential transfers were part of a carefully planned transition.

"If it's not right, we have to go back to the regional service planning body to correct it."