Townsville Hospital will spend $2.8 million a year to fix its under-funded and under-resourced high-risk maternity unit.
The overloaded Maternal Fetal Medicine Unit is the only public high-risk maternity service outside of the south-east corner of Queensland.
The findings of a review into the service, which was leaked to the ABC earlier this year, identified that mothers and babies were at risk "of adverse pregnancy outcomes" due to delays in care at the Townsville unit.
The review of the Townsville unit, which was conducted by Brisbane-based specialist Glenn Gardener in 2022, was endorsed by the hospital and health service board on Monday.
There are just two maternal fetal medicine specialists at the Townsville unit who care for the highest-risk and most complicated pregnancies in regional Queensland.
Action needed
Townsville Hospital and Health Service chair Tony Mooney said the board accepted all 11 recommendations including hiring additional staff to allow the unit to operate five days a week and a purpose-designed clinic.
"We accept that planning needs to be undertaken right now and actions taken to improve the service that we have here for women and their babies," Mr Mooney said.
"I want to ensure the patients past, present and those into the future know this proactive step was about ensuring that [the unit] is going to be able to provide the right care for women and their babies."
The review by Dr Gardener found the two specialists in Townsville serviced more births than any other unit in Australia or New Zealand "with some of the highest rates of perinatal morbidity and mortality in the country".
Mr Mooney said demand for the service had grown since its inception.
It managed more than 700 high-risk referrals or transfers from across the region in 2021.
More specialists
Townsville Hospital and Health Service chief executive Kieran Keyes, who will oversee the implementation plan, said two additional maternal fetal medicine specialists would be recruited but he could not say how long that could take.
"If they could be on board tomorrow that would be terrific, but we know specialist recruitment is particularly challenging especially for sub specialists like maternal fetal medicine services," Mr Keyes said.
He said a social worker, psychologist, and Indigenous health worker would also be employed.
Townsville Hospital and Health Service will provide an extra $2.8 million to the service annually.
Board chair Tony Mooney said the hospital would make further announcements when recommendations were implemented.
