The Blue Mountains Maternity Coalition is organising a rally tomorrow at the Anzac Memorial Hospital in Katoomba in response to rumours the maternity wing is to be closed permanently. If you care about birthing in the mountains, consider lending your support. Meet t the hospital 1:30pm 14/5/09.
Rally Poster
The media is reporting the lack of an anaesthetist should a woman in advanced labour require surgery prompted Katoomba maternity staff to insist the woman be transferred to Nepean.
Apparently, her contractions were only a minute apart when the call to make the hour long transfer was made. The baby was born near Glenbrook, and fortunately both mother and baby are healthy.
It seems that the government has decided this is a reasonable outcome, as it still has not adequately staffed the Katoomba maternity ward, despite repeated earlier promises.
Sky News is reporting that Katoomba Maternity unit has been closed for a 36 hour period due to lackof anaesthetic cover. It remains a mystery to me that so many people want to live in the mountains, and many who do are forced to travel to the city for work, yet NSW Health cannot recruit medical staff to work at the Katoomba Hospital.