00:00It's very dire. We're not seeing this anywhere else in the country.
00:05Women deserve choices, and we have very few now in Darwin.
00:09If we wanted another one, we're not going to do it up here. It's too much risk.
00:14Sophia Scaterchio's pregnancy journey wasn't straightforward.
00:18Going through multiple rounds of IVF and a threatened miscarriage
00:22before giving birth to her daughter at Darwin Private Hospital last year.
00:27I felt safe because I had continuity of care.
00:32I had the same obstetrician. Every time I went, she knew who I was, what we needed to do.
00:38She wants to grow her family, but won't be giving birth in the Northern Territory again.
00:44I don't trust the hospital to manage my care with best-practice women-centred care.
00:54Sophia is among a growing number of women travelling interstate to give birth,
00:59or leaving the Territory altogether after Healthscope abruptly closed the NT's only private hospital maternity ward.
01:07The decision has forced the NT's last private obstetrician to close her practice.
01:13I'm worried about the Northern Territory. We have very complex healthcare needs.
01:19The closure of the private hospital's maternity ward has added around 300 births a year to Darwin's already stretched public hospital.
01:28And doctors say the consequences are already unfolding.
01:31We've seen mothers who have been delayed in the care that they've received.
01:35They've been labouring in places that are not maternity spaces, areas such as waiting rooms.
01:40There's a lot of burnout in the workforce and there's a lot of frustration from our obstetricians and midwives.
01:45The NT government responded to Healthscope's departure by turning this Darwin Airport hotel into a substitute maternity ward for postnatal care.
01:54It also awarded a $1.1 million contract to midwife Claire Marks to establish a private midwifery practice.
02:02For Dr Alia Vamuri, who grew up in Darwin, staying is no longer an option.
02:09Because of essentially a lack of infrastructure and a belief that the women who I care for deserve a certain standard of care.
02:17The NT government's health department says it's still finalising a funding proposal to the Commonwealth for $10 million to upgrade infrastructure at the Royal Darwin Hospital.
02:28But it's unclear how much of that will go to maternity services.
02:32The government says it has sufficient delivery rooms and obstetricians to cope with demand.
02:37But the Australian Medical Association says the NT government has been too slow to act.
02:43We should not be the jurisdiction that has the claim to fame of being the only capital city, the only state or territory that doesn't have private maternity.
02:52Because that is the start of the collapse of the healthcare system.
02:55And he says there is a solution.
02:58He says the NT government could take over the private maternity ward sitting dormant next door.
03:04When engineering says the NT comments from the calling for a capital city.
03:08And he says the NT government can't be the property.
03:13Theиты meeting plan list.
03:14He said to State幸福之 sairoms and they have to negotiate the capital city.
03:18These are the ADO against people such as the Trying to stay.
03:20So Display.
03:23They had to be able to announce it.
03:25They had an expansion where they exist, God said.
03:27And they may be able to promote their native audience.
03:28To step three to begin with their creative or Space Innovation Maturity.
03:29So that Alice came to decide whether they have any partner with slightly different dimensions.
