A new primary birthing unit for Wanaka has been recommended to the Southern District Health Board (SDHB).

The recommendation was released by the SDHB board’s project team and the Central Lakes Locality Network, ahead of the board’s meeting tomorrow (Tuesday November 3), the Otago Daily Times reported on Friday (October 30).

The recommended option is to locate a new primary birthing unit in Wanaka; and co-locate Charlotte Jean (Alexandra’s primary birthing unit) with Dunstan Hospital in Clyde. 

The option includes having maternal and child hubs in Ranfurly and Cromwell, and emergency birthing facilities in Lawrence.

The recommendation follows a long consultation process on where primary maternity facilities should be located in Central Otago/Wanaka.

The consultation included a meeting in Cromwell in July, and a followup meeting in Wanaka in September which took account of a significant response from Wanaka residents to the board’s options paper.

Wanaka midwife Emma Bilous made a strong case for a Wanaka facility during the consultation process. 

Long-term Wanaka midwife Emma Bilous made a strong case for a Wanaka birthing unit at the September meeting, SDHB primary and population health general manager Mary Cleary Lyons told the Wanaka App.

Emma, who has practiced as a midwife in Wanaka since 1997 and is now a lecturer/student practice facilitator at the Central Otago satellite site for the Otago Polytechnic, highlighted that Wanaka reached the milestone of 100 births in a year way back in 2003.

“Those babies can be having their own babies now. We do need something to happen,” she said.

SDHB primary and population health general manager Mary Cleary Lyons.

Wanaka women currently face an hour’s drive to the nearest primary birthing unit (Charlotte Jean Maternity Hospital in Alexandra) or a three and a half hour drive to Dunedin Hospital.

The Otago Daily Times reported there is a caveat to the new recommendation: the two facility model will only be financially sustainable if the SDHB and local lead maternity care (LMC) midwives work with a local trust or non-governmental organisation to jointly develop and implement a sustainable model of care.

This model has been used elsewhere in Otago.

If that agreement could not be achieved, two other options would be considered: a birthing unit in Cromwell or at Dunstan Hospital in Clyde, the report said. 

If a new birthing unit is decided for Wanaka, it would take “up to two years” for it to be in place, Mary told the Wanaka App.

In the meantime the SDHB has “parked” work on a maternal and child hub for Wanaka which was meant to have opened at the beginning of this year, until a decision is made on a birthing unit.

A primary birthing unit is equipped for supporting healthy women with no medical complications through labour, birth, and inpatient postnatal care. Primary maternity facilities, such as the Charlotte Jean Maternity Hospital in Alexandra, have onsite or on-call midwifery support in addition to the mother’s chosen midwife.

A maternal and child hub is a non-birthing unit with resources to support women and babies’ antenatal and postnatal care. Such hubs are not intended as a planned place for birth, but have basic midwifery equipment and are accessible to lead maternity care midwives in an emergency.

PHOTOS: Supplied