1,000 signatures reached
To: The Hon. Bridget Archer MP, Minister for Health
More Midwives Matter!
Midwives at the Royal Hobart Hospital (RHH) are raising the alarm. Since the closure of Hobart Private maternity in 2025, demand for maternity care at the RHH has surged, yet staffing, resources and support have not increased to match this higher workload.
Midwives are now deeply concerned about the safety of women, babies and themselves.
We are calling on the Minister for Health to urgently deliver the following immediate measures:
- Increase midwife staffing by 10% to match the rise in births and workload since the closure of Hobart Private, pending a full review of staffing needs.
- Allow up to 10 experienced agency midwives to work in the service to ensure there are enough skilled staff available to keep mothers and babies safe.
Further, we call on the Minister to:
- Meet with midwives and the ANMF to agree on a path to deliver additional solutions essential for long term safety and sustainability
Why is this important?
Why is this matter ‘urgent’?
Midwives are reporting:
- Increased numbers of women and babies entering the service
- Too few midwives to safely meet demand
- High numbers of new graduates needing clinical support
- Unsafe workloads and unsafe skill mix
- Essential equipment shortages due to unfunded requests
- Midwives being diverted from patient care to nonclinical tasks
These conditions increase the risk of delays, missed care and preventable harm. Midwives are doing everything they can, but they cannot safely continue under the current pressures.
Key facts…
Key facts…
- Births in Tasmania increased by 3.92% between 2024 and 2025. With the closure of Hobart Private Hospital’s maternity ward, this has placed additional strain on the RHH maternity Midwives.
- At the same time as workloads increase, Tasmanian midwives are being asked to deliver safe care to one of the most high-risk maternity populations in the country under conditions that are increasingly unsafe. These include:
- Deep social disadvantage
- Among the highest rates of preterm birth
- The highest prevalence of chronic hypertension in pregnancy
- The second highest rate of smoking during pregnancy
- The highest maternal obesity ratenationally – driving higher intervention rates and clinical complexity
- Requests for essential equipment were declined, leaving midwives reliant on donated items.
- Members are questioning what happened to the $6 million in federal fundingallocated to both Calvary and THS (how much was allocated to RHH maternity services for infrastructure and equipment).