ZOE Howe knew she would have to give birth in Tauranga.

After two prior caesarean births she and her midwife were preparing for another, and while the recent news of Whakatāne Hospital’s maternity unit downgrade was not ideal, at least she and her partner, Brook de Goey, would have time to plan for that.

But then the unplanned happened.

At a routine Tuesday lunchtime checkup, Ms Howe’s midwife discovered that her blood pressure was dangerously high – a sign of preeclampsia – and sent her straight to the hospital. Within what seemed like moments, she was in an ambulance headed for Tauranga Hospital.

“I was in my work clothes, I didn’t have a bag packed – I was only 35 weeks,” Ms Howe said.

“We knew we were going to have a c-section, but it was a whole different ballgame being loaded into the back of an ambulance and trucked over to Tauranga.”

She was one of the first mothers impacted by the change to maternity services at Whakatāne Hospital, where a lack of obstetricians has seen the maternity unit unable to provide secondary care. The change means anyone undergoing a high-risk pregnancy, planned induction or caesarean birth will have to give birth at Tauranga Hospital, while emergencies that occur in the middle of labour will require transfer to Tauranga via ambulance or helicopter.

The trip was incredibly stressful, Ms Howe said, with the ambulance having to stop every 15 minutes so accurate blood pressure readings could be taken.

After a few days of intensive monitoring at Tauranga Hospital, Benji was born at 36 weeks (four weeks early).

“He had the cord wrapped around his neck twice and there was a knot in the cord. So, it hit me that if the transfer had been in the middle of labour, he could have been born on the road with all of that potential for disaster and who knows what could have happened,” Ms Howe said.

Complications from the preeclampsia meant she and Benji needed an 11-night stay in Tauranga – with three children, Lockie, Mack and Ava, back at home in Ōhope. While Benji could have been transferred to the SCBU at Whakatāne, Zoe’s complications meant she needed care from an obstetrician, which is not available in the Eastern Bay since the downgrade.

“The care at Tauranga was amazing but it would have been so much easier if we could have been here,” she said.

“You’re not just 10 minutes away from home and I think that’s what’s hard.”

Mr de Goey was backwards and forwards, torn between supporting his partner and caring for their children back home, and it was hard on the kids not being able to easily visit their mum.

“I do have a good support network, but they’re all here,” Ms Howe said. “It was quite lonely and there were quite a lot of tears and 3am breakdowns.”

She said it wasn’t until she and Benji were finally safe at home that it really hit her, the enormity of what she had been through and what it meant for other mums and midwives in the Eastern Bay.

“I just hope that they sort it out quickly for all the other mums and all the other babies And I feel for the midwives too, they are the ones that will carry it if something goes wrong.

“It’s not safe. It feels as if everything is out of your control, which to a certain extent is something you have to accept when you are pregnant – but even more so when help is so far from home.”

Health NZ Te Whatu Ora needed to take a good look at what was going wrong at Whakatāne Hospital and in its recruitment processes, Ms Howe said.

“They need to ask themselves why they have no staff. Why aren’t we paying more money to recruit and retain staff, and saving all this money they are having to pay for travel and accommodation in Tauranga?”

She said a paediatrician at Whakatāne Hospital had said to her, “it just shows that women and children are not prioritised here.”

Ms Howe has shared her story with the Beacon in the hopes of raising awareness of the real stress and anxiety that is hitting Eastern Bay mums as a result of the changes to the maternity unit and hopes that people in the community will push for the crisis to be resolved quickly.

She said she had seen negative reactions on social media, people saying it won’t change anything. “But how are they going to make it urgent if people don’t speak out?” she said. “Hopefully the march and the petition have an impact and some change can happen, quickly.”

There is a march being held – Hikoi for Health – tomorrow at noon from Mitchell Park to Wharaurangi on the Strand.

The petition can be found at change.org/whakatane_maternity