Expectant mothers in the Far South may soon be able to give birth closer to home, with the Southern DHB announcing they want to open two new birthing units.
Two new primary birthing units are planned for Wanaka and at Clyde's Dunstan Hospital.
However, the Charlotte Birthing Unit in Alexandra is still likely to close, and there are no plans to reinstate the Lumsden Maternity Service as a birthing centre.
It comes after communities in Central Otago and Southland spent more than a year calling for local facilities after a series of ad-hoc births.
In June last year, then-MP for Clutha-Southland Hamish Walker called on the Prime Minister to urgently intervene after a mother gave birth in the carpark of the Lumsden maternity hub. It followed another birth on the side of the road.
Walker said at the time it was the third emergency birth since the Lumsden Maternity Centre was downgraded in April last year to a “maternal and child hub”, with all three mothers unable to make it to a primary birthing unit.
The Lumsden Maternity centre was downgraded to a hub last year, meaning the mum had to try make it over an hour away to Invercargill to give birth.
"If the maternity centre had not been downgraded there would have been a second midwife on site, which would have dramatically increased the mother’s chances of making it inside to give birth," he said.
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