A Victorian mother was separated from her premature twins for days immediately after their birth last week, when a shortage of specialist cots at Sunshine Hospital left the family spilt between two health services.

The first-time mother gave birth to the twins, born premature at 34 weeks, on September 5.

Sunshine Hospital in Melbourne’s west. Credit:Justin McManus

The woman’s family says she was told the hospital did not have enough staffed cots in the special care nursery available to care for the babies.

The twins were instead transferred 43 kilometres away to Sandringham Hospital, about an hour’s drive from Sunshine.

The mother, who was not well enough to be moved for 24 hours, remained at Sunshine Hospital without her newborns. She did not see her babies for four days.

Wendy Watson, the divisional director of women’s and children’s services at Western Health, said the health and safety of patients was a “top priority”.

“The decisions to transfer the twins and to continue the mother’s care at Sunshine Hospital were made in the best medical interests of all three patients,” she said.

But the woman’s mother-in-law spoke to The Age on the condition of anonymity, to protect her family’s identity, after earlier calling talkback radio station 3AW on Tuesday. She said her daughter-in-law was “really struggling mentally”.

“It’s been incredibly distressing for her … not being able to hold them or be with them after they were born,” the mother-in-law said.

“They were talking about taking the babies interstate. I was ready to go with them. She did not get to hold the babies or physically see them for four days. It’s not right.”

The mother has since been discharged from Sunshine Hospital, but lives in Melbourne’s western suburbs and is unable to drive to see her babies, who remain at Sandringham Hospital.

The twins’ grandmother said the family wanted the babies transferred back to Sunshine Hospital or a closer health service, such as Werribee Mercy Hospital.

“In these first few days, babies are meant to be with their parents, and they’ve just been kept apart,” she said.

“The hospital system is broken. It’s just a terrible situation for any new parent to be in.”

The case emerged just weeks after The Age revealed that Victorian medical staff who care for the sickest and smallest babies in Victoria were under pressure like never before, due to a crushing spike in demand and pandemic-fuelled absences at the state’s neonatal intensive care units.

Lisa Fitzpatrick, the Victorian secretary of the Australian Nursing and Midwifery Federation, said late last month she could not recall another winter when specialised services for the sickest and most preterm babies had been under such pressure.

Health sources said this was due to a shortage of staff, particularly specialist-trained neonatal nurses, and a rise in the number of very sick and preterm babies who required close attention when being transferred between hospitals.

The problems spread to Victoria’s paediatric infant perinatal emergency retrieval service, which is run out of the Royal Children’s Hospital and transports the most critically ill babies to neonatal intensive care units for specialist treatment. The unit has operated “in the red” in recent months.

The move to “red status” meant staff at the service addressed the problems by extending shifts, redeploying qualified healthcare workers from other wards and transferring babies out of major hospitals to free up specialist cots.

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