FAQs

Yes. If your GP or midwife are approved by Monash Health to provide pregnancy care.

Read our information sheet on Shared pregnancy care to learn more.

Most women who have a caesarean in a prior pregnancy are safe to try for a vaginal birth after their caesarean section and roughly 75% will succeed in this aim. At Monash Women’s, we are keen to support more women to choose a vaginal birth if appropriate.

Visit our Birth options page to learn more.

Virtual tours of our maternity services will be available from this website soon.

We don’t have private rooms in the public hospitals. Each of our maternity sites has a mixture of bed configurations with a small number of ‘single’ rooms with priority at the time to women who are ill or unwell post birth.

Our philosophy of care at Monash Women’s embraces the normalcy of pregnancy, and its potential for health; with well women supported in normal birth by midwives. If you are giving birth in the hospital, it will be in one of the birth suite rooms.

Monash Medical Centre provides a broad spectrum of maternity services. We provide higher level care for women with complex pregnancies from all over Victoria. It is also the local maternity service for women who live close by. Unfortunately, this means that some women who are healthy must choose to have their baby in a hospital closer to where they live.

Please read our information sheet if you are seeking health services but don’t have a Medicare card.

No, however, if you are having public hospital clinic care, you need to bring a referral from your GP for your first hospital visit.

You can access gynaecology care with Monash Women’s through a referral from your GP. Referrals are categorised by clinical urgency.

Yes. Monash Women’s provides a public girls and young women’s gynaecology clinic through the adolescent gynaecology unit.

It is very helpful to bring copies of any blood tests or scans you have had performed. It is also useful to know the sites of tests you have had where you do not have a copy of the results and inform administration staff on arrival.

This varies by clinic but appointments are scheduled to a specific clinician in many clinics, so it is important to arrive on time for your slot. Please allow plenty of time for travel, clinic processes and gathering of further information as well as clinical discussions that may occur about your case before a plan is made. In practice, this is up to a morning, or afternoon.

Clinic appointments and surgery are covered by Medicare. This includes nearly all blood tests, scans and other investigations required before your operation if they are done at a Monash Health site. Outside providers will charge a fee in most cases.

Most Monash Women’s gynaecologists also maintain a private consulting site and can see you privately. You can be referred for surgery in the public system, however, there will be an out-of-pocket for your appointment if you choose this option.

Referrals are streamed both by site of available appointment type, as not all clinics run on all sites, and distance from your residence. If you are allocated an appointment at a Monash Women’s site that is not the closest to your home, it is generally because this is the site with the nearest clinic meeting your needs or because the appointment is available in a more timely fashion for your care at that site. In general, it is not possible to change the site of your appointment.

Yes, in order to access a Medicare-covered appointment, you need to bring a referral from your GP for your first hospital medical visit. Referrals need to be made to a specific specialist doctor, we would ask that you have your GP write your referral to: ‘Professor Beverley Vollenhoven, Director of Gynaecology’.