National Women’s Health provides a range of pregnancy-related national and regional services, as well as primary, secondary and tertiary maternity services to women who live in the ADHB region.
Our maternity services are also available to women living outside the ADHB region if they are registered with a private LMC who has an access agreement with us.
Services provided at Auckland City Hospital (National Women's Health)
Labour and Birthing Suite
Antenatal and postnatal wards
High Dependency Unit and Critical Care Unit
Women’s Assessment Unit
High Risk Medical Service
Community services
Services provided at National Women’s Health
Labour and Birthing Suite
- Our Labour and Birthing Suite is a 16-bed unit that includes a 2-bed High Dependency Unit for obstetric high-risk cases. We also provide facilities for water births.
- Services include one-to-one midwifery care for women in labour and pain relief options include water (spa pools), entonox, pethidine, and epidural anaesthesia.
- Care is provided by a multidisciplinary team of midwives, nurses specialised in high-risk obstetrics, obstetricians, anaesthetists, obstetric physicians, independent LMCs (lead maternity carers), hospital aides and ward clerks.
- The Labour and Birthing Suite midwives liaise closely with independent lead maternity carers.
Antenatal and postnatal wards
- National Women’s Health has 83 antenatal and postnatal beds for women and babies requiring secondary and tertiary care. There are two antenatal/postnatal wards and they are Ward 96/98 located on the 9th floor and Tamaki ward is located on the 10th floor
- Well women and their babies are transferred to Birthcare Auckland for their postnatal stay as Birthcare holds the contract to provide these services.
High Dependency Unit (HDU) and the Critical Care Unit (ICU)
- HDU is a level 1 Intensive Care Unit with some level 2 facilities. It manages approximately 200 admissions per year – 40% of these are for hypertensive disease and 25% for excessive blood loss. Other reasons for admission include sepsis and cardiac conditions.
- The midwifery and nursing staff in this unit work hard to ensure healthy mother and baby bonding and to encourage breastfeeding.
Women’s Assessment Unit (WAU)
- This service is open 24 hours a day, 7 days a week and provides acute care for women experiencing pregnancy and gynaecologic complications.
- Inductions of labour are booked through WAU and inductions performed in this unit. Women are transferred to Labour and Birthing Suite at the onset of labour.
- WAU provides a service for women from 20 weeks gestation requiring second trimester termination of pregnancy or for women who have suffered an intrauterine death.
- Day Assessment Unit (DAU) is a service provided from within WAU, providing appointment-based care for women with complex pregnancies. DAU has four chairs for simultaneous care of up to four women. Most common referral reasons are hypertensive disorders, small for gestational age babies and post term assessment.
- An external cephalic version (ECV) clinic is provided at the DAU twice weekly.
High Risk Medical Service (including Diabetes Service)
The High Risk Medical, Diabetes and Maternal Fetal Medicine services are provided from an outpatient clinic located on level 9 in the Auckland City Hospital (ACH) support building. This facility is also used by Newborn Services, including the Child Development Unit, where NICU admissions are followed up after discharge to assess long term outcome.
- The High Risk Medical and Diabetes services provide antenatal and postnatal midwifery community visits to patients at home, as well as in Starship Hospital and on the postnatal wards at ACH. Two ADHB pool cars are available to assist this service.
Community services
Community clinics are held at Green Lane Clinical Centre; additional antenatal clinics are held in 14 general practice facilities in the ADHB catchment area. Community midwifery clinics and postnatal home visits provide continuity of midwifery care during the antenatal and postnatal period. For labour and birth, midwifery services are provided by core midwives in Labour and Birthing Suite.
- Clinics staffed by publicly-funded obstetricians are held four times a week at Green Lane Clinical Centre. These obstetricians see women under the care of community midwives and secondary referrals from private LMCs.
- Clinics staffed by obstetric physicians are held two times per week.
- A midwifery staffed Walk-in Centre acts as a first point of contact and triage for some pregnant women. These women access the centre by phone or by turning up, either with or without an appointment, and are made aware of their choices for maternity care. If presenting with an acute problem, they are referred to obstetric care as necessary.