Keeping rural births viable and accessible takes a village.
On Sunday, June 14, the Young Hospital Auxiliary hosted a luncheon to celebrate and acknowledge the work they do with the Young Hospital to ensure women are able to keep births close to home.
Guest speaker, Young Hospital Maternity Department Manager April Strong, spoke to the crowd of the importance of maintaining rural maternity services.
“We try to maintain having our on call after hours services here,” says April.
“Big hospitals are under so much pressure. They get a lot of high-risk cases and we’re a low-risk hospital, so we like to be able to maintain having our women here and helping take the pressures off the big hospitals as well.
Many women who give birth in Young often have other children or family at home and travel to other hospitals can be tricky. April says it’s important the hospital, with assistance from the Hospital Auxiliary team, ensures women are provided the same comforts they might find at bigger establishments at their local hospital.
April has grown up in Young and says she’s proud to be helping her community out. Her recent appointment into the Maternity Manager position has allowed her to focus more on the department itself, and in doing so, the new mothers.
“It’s nice to have stepped up and being able to talk about all the great work that we’re doing and what our future looks like [was amazing],” she says.
Maintaining a close connection with the Auxiliary has been an important part of April’s role.
“[The Auxiliary] closes the gap between funding,” she says.
“There are things that we may need, but there can be quite a process in getting some equipment.”
Noting a gap between the government funding and other resources, April says the work done by the dedicated Auxiliary team ensures they have faster access to resources such as staff training with mannequins and equipment for patient comfort and safety.
One of the most recent additions to their equipment that was purchased using funding from the Auxiliary, was a cot for women who have had a caesarean section. The equipment connects to a hospital bed, allowing the mother to get their baby out of the cot after a major surgery without needing additional help from nurses.
“Things like this improve patient accessibility and comfort,” says April.
“They’ve also upgraded waiting room chairs, oncology chairs and other things like these in the service area likely such as blinds.
Many people remain unaware of the work the Young Hospital Auxiliary does to assist the hospital, and April says it was a pleasure to be given a space to talk about them.
The Auxiliary team is always looking for more volunteers to continue the work that they do.
Elizabeth Kovacs
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