South Australia's child protection minister, Katrine Hildyard, has taken action to investigate cases where newborn babies are removed from their mothers at public birthing hospitals following concerning allegations of inhumane practices. The review comes on the heels of a whistleblower's disclosure to ABC News that child protection workers have been entering hospital delivery rooms to issue removal notices to at-risk new mothers even before they have delivered the afterbirth.
The whistleblower accused the Department for Child Protection of requesting hospital staff to find reasons to take babies out of wards before serving removal notices, a process that was deemed as "inhumane." Although SA Health policy strictly states that infants should not be separated from their mothers without valid medical reasons, there have been reported instances where babies were already separated from their mothers before the legal removal process was initiated.
Ms. Hildyard acknowledged the gravity of the situation, emphasizing that the removal of newborns from hospitals only happens in deeply distressing circumstances. Despite the heavy toll of such actions, last year, the Department for Child Protection removed 105 babies less than a month old from their mothers, with about a third of them being of Aboriginal descent and many taken within the first week of life. Reasons cited for these removals include accusations of parental unfitness, inadequate living conditions, missed antenatal appointments, and substance misuse.