Sunshine Hospital maternity staff members were pushed to their limits in October as the hospital eclipsed its record for births carried out in a month.
In total, 536 new arrivals were welcomed into the world in October.
Sunshine Hospital operations manager maternity Lisa Smith said the increased workload had put a strain on staff and services.
She said that with current staffing and facilities, the hospital was set up to deal with about 460 births a month.
“So to have that pushed out by almost 100 definitely puts a lot of demand on staff,” she said.
“We were expecting to do around 500, but to get up around 540 was a significant increase.”
The number represents 111 more births than the hospital performed in October, 2016, which Ms Smith said could be attributed to a combination of factors.
“September and October are notoriously busy months across the country, but we’re also in a growth corridor out here in the west,” she said.
In October an average of 17.3 babies were born a day, but one exceptionally busy day saw staff and facilities stretched with 25 babies delivered.
“We normally do 14 a day, so to do 25 in a day was an amazing effort by everybody,”
Ms Smith said.
“We were a little short-staffed and with high demand, things were very difficult, but we put some demand strategies in place and everyone worked really well. It was a great team result.”
The record-breaking month produced a clear gender trend, with more boys (53.4 per cent) born than females (46.6 per cent).
