With a Cobar woman last week forced to give birth on the side of the road, Member for Barwon Kevin Humphries said it’s time the State Government started taking NSW’s regional maternity crisis seriously.

“This is a disgrace, imagine in this day and age anyone having to give birth on the side of the road - only in NSW,” he said.

Mr Humphries said 27-year-old Peta Mills gave birth on the side of the Mitchell Highway near Nevertire.

Peta’s mother, Robyn Floyd and Peta’s partner and father of the newborn, Morgan Trudgett, helped deliver baby girl Kahleah.

Ms Floyd said the family wasted no time getting Peta to the Cobar hospital when she went into labour at about 12.50am, only to be told that they couldn’t do an emergency delivery and she should drive to Dubbo, about 300 kilometres away.

“They just told us ‘she’s in labour with strong contractions, get in and drive’,” Ms Floyd said. “On the way my son-in-law rang ahead to the Nyngan hospital to see if we could get some pain relief for Peta, but with no midwife there was nothing they could do, either.”

Ms Floyd said at about 10km out of Nevertire and about one hour from Dubbo it was clear the baby was not going to wait, and with the help of a 000 phone call Kahleah as born.

“I would like to see something come out of this, we need a decent maternity service in Cobar, even if it’s the appointment of a midwife at the hospital for emergencies,” she said.

“I work in childcare, I know there are plenty of young mothers in Cobar to warrant it - you only have to look down the street to see the number of pregnant women or women pushing prams.”

Mr Humphries agreed that such potential life threatening situations reiterated the need to re-instate maternity services in Barwon.

“Unfortunately this is indicative of the current government, which continues to pull vital services from across regional NSW - what will it take to make the Government listen?”

“In Barwon the current priorities are the three ‘C’s - Cobar,

Coonabarabran and Coolah. I’ve been lobbying to the Minister to

re-instate maternity services and midwives to these towns, and so far

calls have fallen upon deaf ears,” Mr Humphries said.