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PDF PORTLAND’S maternity services will be stretched until April after a longstanding feud with hospital management culminated in the resignation of the hospital’s only general practitioner obstetrician.
Wladek Smolilo, GP obstetrician and anaesthetist, will leave Portland District Health (PDH) on Wednesday, and will not be replaced until the beginning of April, leaving a six-week gap in the hospital’s maternity services.
PDH quality coordinator Wendy Buckland said the hospital will continue to assess each pregnancy to determine if the baby can be delivered at PDH or at Warrnambool or Hamilton.
If the birth is to take place at PDH it will be done by two midwives and GP Fariha Irshad, who is yet to undertake an advanced diploma in obstetrics.
“If it’s safer for them to stay and have a midwife led birth than to go on the road, then that’s what will happen. We assess every woman who comes in, in labour, because we do not want them to go on the road and have a baby on the roadside.
“Sometimes it’s safer to call an ambulance and sometimes it’s safer to stay with the qualified midwives,” Ms Buckland said.
She said midwives will inform all patients Dr Irshad is still in training to provide obstetric services, and more qualified doctors are available in Warrnambool and Hamilton.
To read the full article see Monday’s edition of the Portland Observer.
