Update on Southern Primary Maternity System of Care

Update following meetings in Lumsden and Te Anau:

Southern DHB participated in a public meeting with the Lumsden area community last night and today we had a follow up meeting with healthcare providers and community members in Te Anau to further examine what a Maternal and Child Hub might look like in that community.

Maternal and child hubs will be well-equipped clinical spaces, giving midwives the extra support they need to provide safe and effective care for women and newborns. The hubs may include observation beds and consultation rooms for use by midwives and other healthcare providers, including visiting specialists. It could also provide equipment such as homebirth kits, CTG for monitoring foetal heartrates and contractions, blood pressure monitoring, resuscitation kits, and IT provisions for telehealth services – meaning more women can receive specialist services by video link, without needing to travel to a secondary/ tertiary hospital

Midwives would have 24/7 access to maternal and child hubs in Lumsden and Te Anau, so that if they need to access these facilities to enable safe births in urgent situations, that may be possible.

Each hub will differ based on the needs of the local community and we will work with mothers, midwives, healthcare providers, and other stakeholders to co-design these so that they are the best fit for women and families using the service.

Since we launched our proposed plan for a new Primary Maternity System of Care on Tuesday March 06, we’ve been clear that this is a proposal. We are listening to what people have to say. We want members of our communities to read the plan and submit their suggestions on how we can best provide a sustainable, safe and effective system of maternity care.

It is important that maternity services in Lumsden are not considered in isolation, rather as part of an integrated network of primary and secondary maternity services, supported by transport and transfer services. The system should also strengthen support for lead maternity carers (LMC) and community midwives, providing more facilities, equipment and resources in the community.

Lumsden Catchment

As was highlighted last evening, we are revisiting the contested numbers of pregnancies in the Lumsden area and the composition of its catchment. Specifically, the question has been raised around whether the whole of the Waikaia district falls within the Lumsden catchment or whether some parts are more appropriately aligned with Gore or in some areas with Queenstown.   We need to carefully look at each of the areas and ensure these are aligned appropriately.  Data indicates that the current patterns see women from the Waikaia district going to both Lumsden and Gore which makes sense when one looks at the physical size of this area.

We hope to work together to clarify these matters, which will provide the information needed to be able to ensure the most appropriate decisions are made.

In developing the proposed primary maternity plan, we relied primarily on Stats NZ data to determine the numbers of births and pregnancies in each catchment area across the district. We validated the data with two other data sources - Ministry of Health information and Southern DHB's own Newborn Hearing Screening data. 

We continue to be open to suggestions for improving how we provide primary maternity services and encourage anyone with comments, questions or suggestions to make submissions to primarymaternity@southerndhb.govt.nz by Wednesday 28 March.

Until a final decision has been made on the configuration of primary maternity services for the district, and any transition plan implemented,  we remind women in the Lumsden area to continue to book into Lumsden Maternity Centre.