Maternity care not in crisis, says Government

Health Minister Pete Hodgson

Health Minister Pete Hodgson has defended the state of maternity services following reports that say there are major gaps in data and variations in the quality of service.

Mr Hodgson released two reports today that followed a call by Wellington coroner Garry Evans for a full review of maternity services.

Officials advised Mr Hodgson in the report that a full review was not necessary and would not be a good use of resources.

The review would also be ineffective because of poor data on maternal and perinatal deaths and all births, they said.

Mr Hodgson said: "Overall, I'm confident that we have high-quality maternity services in New Zealand.

"With that said, there is work to be done. In particular, it's important that we get better data on every birth and every perinatal death in New Zealand.

"Without that information, it will be very difficult to continuously improve the quality of maternity services."

He said work would be done to improve data collection.

The Health Ministry told the Government the information that did exist showed most women and babies received good care, but "also indicated there are inequalities in outcomes for some mothers and babies".

- NZPA