Twelve years ago, on a Sunday afternoon in June, Dave Cockburn knocked on the front door of the small home we rented down on the corner of Beetham and Petersen streets.
He was the Scenic Rim’s Deputy Mayor and also chaired the Scenic Rim Health Services Taskforce, which was fighting to restore birthing services at Beaudesert Hospital.
I was a young journalist at the Beaudesert Times and a regular at taskforce meetings, throwing myself into an advocacy journalism campaign giving voice to the community’s plight.
Dave came bearing great news, that then Health Minister Lawrence Springborg had just made an announcement promising a 2014 return of birthing services.
He came straight from the 2012 Rural Doctors Association of Queensland conference on the Gold Coast, where Springborg made the announcement in front of many Beaudesert locals, including the likes of Marg Moss and Dr Michael Rice.
It was an exciting time to be a community journo and a proud time to be at the Beaudesert Times. Under the ownership of Mark and Gail Hodgson and the editorial leadership of local news stalwarts like Brenton Waters, that paper had played an important role in keeping Beaudesert’s maternity services in the headlines.
When it culminated in the reopening of Beaudesert’s birthing services 10 years ago, it felt like testament to the power of community advocacy and the valuable role local newspapers can play.
Fast forward to today, and we’ve outgrown that little rental on the corner of Beetham and Peterson streets.
The home we live in these days is still small, but it’s full to the brim with the addition of our beautiful baby girl Rosie, born last year at Beaudesert Hospital.
In the cocoon of pregnancy and labour, childbirth and postpartum, I’ve continued to feel an especially strong connection with that maternity unit, underpinned by the community advocacy I got to be part of all those years ago.
The experience my husband Zac and I had with Beaudesert Hospital, from our first prenatal appointment to our final home midwife visit, was a first-hand insight into the amazing service our community fought so hard to get back.
It felt poignant having Rosie babbling into the voice recorder and grabbing at my camera when I photographed and interviewed Dave, Marg and Michael outside hospital for our story in the Beaudesert Bulletin, celebrating a decade of the reopened maternity unit.
Long live local maternity services and long live local newspapers!
