Pregnant women in south-west Victoria's Portland Health District will be forced to travel more than an hour to give birth after maternity services were suspended at the local hospital.
The district, four hours west of Melbourne, suspended operations at its maternity ward for at least the next three months.
The ABC understands a shortage of appropriate staff is to blame.
It comes days after the hospital's ophthalmologist announced he was leaving the health provider at the end of the month despite having a waiting list of more than 100 patients.
It is understood that maternity wards at hospitals in Warrnambool and Hamilton will be required to fill the void, but each is at least an hour away from Portland.
The ABC has confirmed that Portland District Health also paused maternity services for a number of days earlier this month.
The health service has two birthing suites and is equipped to handle low-risk birthing services for women with full-term pregnancies.
Women who develop complications or go into labour at less than 37 weeks are referred to larger hospitals.
Ongoing dispute over funding, staffing
The shutdown comes amid an ongoing dispute with local doctors over the future of the Portland Hospital.
Earlier this year senior doctors signed an open letter to the state government and the hospital's board urging it to abandon any plans to amalgamate with Warrnambool's South West Healthcare.
The doctors said they feared the hospital's reliance on locum staff was pushing it towards financial ruin and that an amalgamation would be required.
But the board and state government have both since confirmed that an amalgamation is not on the cards.
Each has pointed to a report into Portland District Health by professor David Hillis in 2019, known as The Hillis Report, which is yet to be released to the public.
The report, which has been obtained under Freedom of Information laws, details ongoing financial, managerial and cultural struggles that have plagued the hospital.
It recommends that a "rural generalist model" be introduced in the region immediately, which would see some specialists shared across hospitals in Warrnambool, Hamilton and the surrounding districts.
Rural generalists are general practitioners who provide primary care services, emergency medicine and have training in additional skills like obstetrics, anaesthetics or mental health services.
South West Healthcare has confirmed it would support the implementation of such a model, while Western District Health, which operates the Hamilton Hospital, has confirmed it is already working towards the introduction of such a model of healthcare.
The state government accepted the report's recommendations in July 2020, but it is yet to reveal what steps are being made to implement the new program.
The Commonwealth government committed $62 million in the 2019-20 budget to create a university "pathway" to attract and retain more doctors and medical professionals in regional areas.
Portland District Health has been contacted for comment.
