Tiny Ewan makes 1000 Kim Stephens
It has been just over five years since former Treasurer Peter
Costello issued his infamous appeal to Australians to have ‘one for mum,
one for dad and one for the country’.
|
David Ellers and Victoria Giles welcome Ballarat Health Services
Base Hospital’s 1000th baby this year, Ewan Daniel Ellers.
Picture: Lachlan Bence |
When Mr Costello made the appeal back in 2004, Ballarat Base
Hospital’s maternity ward were delivering just under one 1000 babies
each year.
It appears the Ballarat populace heeded his words.
On Monday afternoon, the arrival of tiny Ewan Daniel Ellers signalled
the hospital crashing through the 1000 barrier nearly three months
before the year’s end.
The hospital’s women’s and children’s services nursing director Terry
Antonio said her ward now welcomed 31 per cent more babies than it did
in 2003. She said unbeknown to three women in labour on Monday
afternoon, the race was on between them as to who would deliver the
hospital’s 1000th baby.
But after a six-hour labour, baby Ewan’s 23-year-old mum Victoria
Giles said she “wasn’t really with it”, when hospital staff delivered
the news that Ewan was the one.
Antonio said contributing to the rise in the number of births since
2003, was hospitals from outlying areas such as Stawell, Ararat,
Maryborough and Horsham sending their patients more frequently to
Ballarat to deliver.
The Courier |
