Calvary steps in to care for mothers and babies amid healthcare crisis

By Catherine Sheehan

Calvary Lenah Valley Hospital, a Catholic not-for-profit healthcare provider, will pick up the shortfall in vital maternity services in Hobart following the recent announcement that Hobart Private Hospital will be closing its maternity ward.

The ward closure signifies a major crisis in maternal healthcare in Hobart as currently Hobart Private facilitates around 500 births each year.

National private hospital operation and healthcare provider, Healthscope, announced on 20 February that it would cease to provide maternity services at Hobart Private from 20 August 2025 “due to ongoing workforce challenges”.

The closure is part of a broader crisis with many private maternity wards closing around Australia in recent times, due to the unprofitable nature of maternal care for both private health providers and private health insurers.

The closures will place pressure on the public healthcare system and Catholic health providers to take on those expectant mothers who can’t access maternity services at a private hospital. Calvary Lenah Valley currently facilitates around 380 births each year.

A media release from Hobart Private Hospital stated the “difficult decision” came after a “thorough review of the operational viability of the service” and was primarily attributed to an inability to “recruit any new appropriately qualified midwives to work in the maternity ward”.

However, Calvary Health Care CEO Martin Bowles responded that “the announcement by Healthscope had put profit before care, creating enormous uncertainty for mothers-to-be, their families, and the obstetric and maternity workforce, while adding pressure to not-for-profit and public operators”.

“Calvary has been delivering compassionate and high-quality care to expectant mothers in Hobart for 80 years,” Mr Bowles said. “And we are committed to supporting the changing and increasing needs of the community.”

Mr Bowles said the Catholic healthcare provider said it would “take the necessary steps alongside the Government to make sure mothers and babies were cared for in Hobart safely”.

“As a not-for-profit, we invest everything into the services we deliver and private health insurers need to acknowledge if they want to be able to offer services to their policy holders, they need to reset pricing for private providers to make to make services sustainable – particularly when it comes to low-margin activity like maternity.”

Dr David Gartlan, a gynaecologist and obstetrician who works at both Hobart Private and Calvary Lenah Valley, as well as in the public system at Royal Hobart Hospital, said the maternity ward closure was indeed a “crisis”.

“I’ve not seen the rate of closure of private maternity units happening as it has in my time,” Dr Gartlan said.

“Catholic [health] care is vital at the moment, particularly in Hobart, but also elsewhere nationally, to be able to maintain particularly the private maternity services while we navigate this crisis, and that’s particularly being seen in Hobart where we hope that the private service that Calvary gives in Hobart will be able to be maintained for many years into the future.

“The public system is trying to maintain its own model of good quality healthcare to public patients, and it would not be helpful at all for patients who are currently cared for in the private system to overflow into the public system.

Dr Gartlan said it was important that the government was involved in ensuring essential healthcare services were “running smoothly” with “a nice balance between public maternity and private maternity” that could be “maintained into the future”.

“Our society needs to provide an environment where it’s supportive of our young people, and people having babies,” he said.

Dr Katharine Bassett, Director of Health Policy at Catholic Health Australia, echoed Calvary’s concerns, saying the decision by Healthscope was about the company’s “bottom line”.

“Healthscope’s decision to scrap its maternity ward in Hobart is yet another example of the for-profit healthcare model’s failure to deliver essential health services to underserved communities,” Dr Bassett said.

“It is troubling to see another for-profit healthcare provider cherry-picking the work that suits its bottom line and abandoning communities that rely on these vital services.”

State Minister for Health, Jacquie Petrusma, said the Tasmanian Government was disappointed by Healthscope’s “commercial decision”.

“Our Government stands ready to work with the Federal Government, key stakeholders and private providers such as Calvary Healthcare to support the additional requirements in capacity for birthing services in Southern Tasmania,” Minister Petrusma said.

Dr Gartlan said there was an urgent need to change the current funding system involving private health providers and private health insurers, as “people are being priced out of the system”.

“The system needs to be adjusted so that it is sustainable for all of those parties… the patients, the private insurers, and the private hospitals,” he said.

“The public health system and the private healthcare have worked successfully alongside each other in Australia for many years, and that needs to continue.

“Now, the funding model for private healthcare, particularly with respect to maternity care, needs to be adjusted because, at the moment, it’s failing, and the result is that private maternity units across Australia are rapidly closing.

“The Hobart Private [maternity ward closure] is just one of many, as I’m sure you’re aware, that are closing around Australia, and there will be more to come.”