Healthscope announced it will cease maternity services at Darwin Private Hospital and Hobart Private Hospital from April 17 and August 20, respectively.
The private provider cited a declining birth rate and local skills shortages in Darwin and ongoing workforce challenges in Hobart as reasons for the closures.
Despite a national recruitment campaign over the past 12 months, Hobart Private had been unable to attract qualified midwives to work in the maternity ward, Healthscope Victoria/Tasmania state manager Chris Hewison said.
Instead, the hospital has been flying in and accommodating up to six full-time agency midwives, half the midwives needed to staff the ward, to maintain a safe service for families in Hobart.
"We have looked at a range of options to maintain the maternity service and worked very hard to recruit the full-time midwives we need," Mr Hewison said.
"Unfortunately, these efforts haven't secured the workforce we need and have made maintaining a stable and reliable maternity service increasingly difficult."
However, the Australian Nursing and Midwifery Federation's Tasmanian branch believed the decision was due to poor revenue.
"It is disappointing that yet again Healthscope have put profit over patient care and sadly it is women and babies that will again be most affected with a reduction in maternity care options for women in the south of the state," the federation's Tasmanian branch secretary Emily Shepherd said.
"This is another disappointing blow for women in the south of the state removing more options for women to birth with now limited private options."
The maternity ward's closure was a "dreadful turn of events", Independent Tasmanian MP Andrew Wilkie said.
"It's well-known that Healthscope is in dire financial strife nationally and Hobart faces the very real prospect of the Private being shut down entirely," he said.
"All of this is an extraordinary wake-up call for the Tasmanian government to stop relying so much on the private hospitals and start prioritising funding for the Royal (Hobart Hospital)."
Birth rates at Darwin Private Hospital have steadily declined over the past decade, from nearly 700 births in 2013 to less than 300 births in 2024.
The maternity situation had been worsened by increasing difficulty in accessing experienced clinicians, in particular pediatricians.
These two factors were behind the decision to close the ward, Healthscope's NT manager Tim Daniel said.
"This was an incredibly difficult decision - we understand the significance of maternity services to families and the community, and we deeply regret the inconvenience and concern that the loss of this service will cause," he said.
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