done, sent, and the links forwarded to my local doula and other mums


Dear Ms Bryant,

As a woman in her forties trying to have another child in a small town, I have been distressed and disappointed with the lack of services available to pregnant women in the Coffs Harbour area. In February of this year, a routine ultrasound at 9.5 weeks gestation revealed that my baby’s heartbeat and growth had stopped at around the 7.5 week mark. I was advised by my GP to go to Emergency at Coffs Harbour Health Campus for a D&C. My fianc? and I waited fourteen hours, grieving and in pain, to be examined by a doctor. When I was finally taken up for the surgery there was a mistake in the admissions process, I was never given pre-op meds, and the surgeon I had spoken to beforehand wasn’t the one who actually did the D&C.

I was sent home with no post-op instructions, no painkillers, and no antibiotics, with no appointment for a follow-op checkup either. Later that week I was back in emergency with retained products of conception and waited another 12 hours to be examined. I was never offered grief and loss counselling, never seen by a social worker, and not even referred for genetic counselling . The stress of being left to miscarry on my own in the waiting room has contributed greatly to the grief and loss I have suffered. The Coffs Harbour Pregnancy Care Service is brand new – I had children in Coffs Harbour in 1988 and 1992 and there was no ante-natal clinic there at that time, one of the factors that led me to have a home-birth with my youngest, as I received more care from the homebirth midwife than I had had from my OB with the twins in 1988. Another was the distance to a birthing unit – we lived 30km out of Coffs Harbour at the time.

I believe the Pregnancy Care Service is vital to the wellbeing and safety of the women of Coffs Harbour. I have struggled through three miscarriages so far this year to receive continuity of care, in a town where there are very few OB’s and at $180.00 per visit plus a six-week waiting list, are out of the price reach of most families in this low-income area. I am still trying to access specific grief and loss counselling, and follow-up care for complications arising from miscarriage and an ageing reproductive system. Lack of access to care is a primary reason why some women are choosing to not have children and particularly those of us in the older, high-risk category.

The bottom line is, if women cannot access suitable support services, they are being put at risk in their pregnancies.


Thank you for your time.