Losing private maternity care is a warning Tasmania cannot ignore
It is with a mixture of sadness and frustration that AMA Tasmania has seen a respected medical colleague leave the state after closing her private obstetric practice in the north west. This is not just the loss of one doctor or one clinic. It is the loss of choice for women and families across the region.
Women in north west Tasmania who want to give birth privately now have to travel to Launceston or Hobart or rely on the public system. That should concern anyone who cares about regional health access, women’s health, and the sustainability of our workforce. It is another warning sign from a region already under-serviced and overstretched.
The circumstances are complex, but the message is simple. A model that leaves regional specialists carrying too much clinical, administrative, and personal risk will fail. When concerns are raised and not addressed, no-one should be surprised when doctors decide they cannot continue.
In this case, concerns about arrangements between the public system and the North West Private Hospital for private maternity patients appear to have contributed to the closure. Hybrid arrangements can work, but only if they work for patients, clinicians, and services. When they do not, we lose doctors, patients lose choice, and pressure shifts to the public system, which is already under strain.
Private medical services are not an optional extra in regional communities. They help retain specialists who want a mix of public and private work. They support local access and patient choice. They make regional practice more viable. When private services disappear, the burden does not disappear with them.
This is especially true in maternity care. Pregnancy and childbirth cannot be centralised without consequences. Requiring women to travel for private maternity care adds cost, stress, and risk. It also sends a clear message to regional women that they should expect less from the health system.
North west Tasmania deserves better than a slow erosion of services followed by regret once they are gone. We need health service planning that looks across the whole system, public and private together. That means understanding the workforce needed to provide safe maternity care, supporting recruitment and succession planning, and ensuring public-private arrangements are clinically sound, transparent, and sustainable.
The Tasmanian Government must listen when clinicians raise concerns about service sustainability, theatre access, workforce pressure, and governance. These are not inconvenient complaints. They are early warnings.
If the north west is to attract another obstetrician to provide private maternity care, the reasons this practice closed must be heard and addressed. Women in regional Tasmania should not have fewer options because services were allowed to become fragile. Doctors should not have to leave the state because local arrangements become untenable.
Now that the State Budget has been handed down, the need for a serious health plan is even clearer. Tasmania needs a plan that is honest about demand, clear about how care will be delivered across the public and private sectors, transparent about what is not possible, and backed by political will, funding, and accountability. The question now is whether the Government will listen and act before more regional services are lost.>>>ENDS
