Sunshine Hospital sets new record

Sunshine Hospital has had a record 536 babies born for the month. Pictured is mum Madelyn with baby Connor born October 31. Picture Shawn Smits.

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).