‘Infant turned away’: Plea from Barossa mother over hospital
Calls for a review of regional health services are growing as a mother tells of being turned away from a local hospital despite her infant daughter struggling after a feeding tube being pulled out.
A Nuriootpa woman is calling on the state government to urgently review the Barossa Health Network saying more than 150 families have shared hospital stories of “delayed care, equipment that did not exist, and being turned away or transferred”.
Hayley Laney said her letters sent to Health Minister Blair Boyer on April 22 and Premier Peter Malinauskas on May 5 asking for commitments to an “independent review of Barossa health infrastructure and service delivery” and a new Barossa hospital initially received no response.
After first speaking with InDaily, she later confirmed that the Health Minister this week had invited her to a meeting where she would outline numerous stories shared about how difficult it was living without an adequately staffed or serviced hospital system nearby.
Laney, who has lived in the Barossa for close to 20 years, claimed her now three-year-old daughter Averley’s complex medical condition was not cared for appropriately at local hospitals on two separate occasions.
“The worst experience was in 2024 where my youngest daughter was actually [taken by ambulance] to Tanunda War Memorial Hospital with a heart rate of 250,” Laney said.
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“She was admitted to Tanunda Hospital, where they did not have any facilities available for her. She was almost two at the time, and they had no cot available, no formula, no suitable food, no suitable nappies or anything.
“She was not cared for appropriately. Medications were not given on time. Staff were unable to perform normal procedures such as blood sugar testing.”
In 2023, Averley was turned away from both the Tanunda and Angaston Hospital’s due to a lack of qualified doctors to reinsert her nasogastric feeding tube which had been removed, forcing the family to drive one-and-a-half hours to the Women’s and Children’s Hospital.
The family now has a written plan to bypass all local hospitals and drive directly to the Lyell McEwin or Women’s and Children’s Hospital when their children fall ill.
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Laney said she received an apology from former Health Minister Chris Picton after sharing her stories at Country Cabinet in 2025 but said “nothing has changed” since, adding that around 150 local families had shared their own concerns.
It follows recent reports of a Freeling woman Lauren Barker being turned away from the Gawler Health Service while in labour due to staff shortages. Barker said her child now suffered from “a range of serious health problems” linked to “delays and stress caused by the last-minute change of plans”.
“We’re still seeing stories like mine that are coming up from the Health Network. Our local paper is continually reporting closures at the Angaston Emergency Department where there’s no doctor on site,” Laney said.
“There are structural issues at both Tanunda War Memorial Hospital and Angaston Hospitals that are not resourced to manage simple cases. Barossa people have been waiting for a long time for a new hospital, and there’s been opportunities for both governments to respond, and yet we still find ourselves in this situation.
“I’d just like to see some transparency first, and some communication and some real engagement with the community.”
Health Minister Blair Boyer confirmed he had received a letter on April 22 and has since asked to meet with Laney, which will be scheduled “alongside a large number of other meeting requests” he has received.
“I want to hear directly from Ms Laney about her experiences, and this meeting will provide that opportunity,” Boyer said.
“Regional health is something very important to me and I spent my first few weeks as Health Minister travelling to Balaklava, Clare, Port Lincoln, Port Augusta and Crystal Brook to name a few. This week I will be in the southeast, not far from where I grew up on the family farm.”
Opposition Leader Ashton Hurn – who campaigned during the state election saying the Liberal Party would commit $350 million to building a new Barossa Hospital – said Laney’s story was”another example of why we need a new Barossa Hospital as close to Nuriootpa as possible”.
“I have been advocating alongside Hayley and her family for some time now – raising their concerns directly with the government and in Parliament,” Hurn said.
“Hayley’s lived experiences have made her a strong and passionate advocate for better regional health services, and I’ll continue working with her to make sure Labor understands that country patients deserve access to the highest quality care, as close to home as possible.”
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