General News
21 June, 2026
Call the Doctor: Small acts make a lasting difference
After welcoming his first child, Dr Felix Ritson paid heartfelt tribute to the Horsham Hospital team who made his family feel safe, respected and genuinely cared for.
Last week my partner and I welcomed our first born child into the world, something we feel incredibly blessed by.
Despite the cluster feeding and subsequent sleep deprivation, I was not worried at all about writing this fortnight's column, as there was an obvious choice of topic.
I would like to use this column to thank the team at the Horsham Hospital by way of describing briefly what a wonderful service they provided.
One hears all kinds of opinions about any health service.
Given the chaotic, exceedingly difficult and financially constrained nature of publicly funded health care, there are those that hold negative opinions of any health service.
In keeping with that universal standard, I have heard a broad range of views about Horsham Hospital and I myself have never required their care.
Hence I did not know what to expect when we signed up for my partner to birth in Horsham.
I have thought quite a bit about the statement I’m about to make, and despite that I still believe it true; I have never been witness to such a high standard of quality of care as I did last week at Horsham Hospitals Maternity Unit.
In all honesty, I find it hard not to shed a tear when I think about it.
It wasn’t the fancy equipment, comfort of the bedding or the food (although the vegetarian lasagne was quite good) that led me to this opinion.
It was the quality of the people working there.
The Midwives, Nurses, Lactation Consultants, Obstetricians, Paediatricians and Anaesthetist all provided excellent whole-person patient-centred care, at times striking what is a difficult balance between honest or even firm guidance whilst remaining genuinely compassionate and invested in my families wellbeing.
We were always explained and informed about the choices to be made with honesty and empathy.
The professionalism, attention to detail and thoughtful consideration of the health care team made us trust them, and as a result we felt safe.
A real standout was the huge effort put in by a student midwife and medical student who attended to us for over 10 hours of labour, unpaid.
The midwife and midwifery student who we have been seeing over the past few months as part of their new continuity of care model were able to attend the birth, hospital stay and then provide home visits.
It was the midwifery student that carefully delivered our child.
There were the little things also.
The midwife dropping off compression stockings to our door one rainy morning, the overnight nurse soothing our child for a couple of hours so we might get some sleep, the midwifery student rapidly braiding my partners hair between contractions, the anaesthetist playing music off his phone to lighten the mood.
The respectful and understanding attitude of the admin, orderly and cleaning staff reminded me of the reason why I moved to the Wimmera; the quality of its people.
These small acts go a long way to those in vulnerable, painful and scary situations.
We have felt genuinely cared for, respected and importantly safe throughout this experience.
I cannot thank the team at Horsham Hospital enough for bringing our little girl into the world.
I definitely wasn’t being hyperbolic when I said before that thinking so brings me to tears.