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If you are willing (actually if
any of you are willing) I have been working on trying to get Ross Coulthardt
from the Sunday Show on Channel 9 to do a story on maternity services in
Australia but he needs some insiders who are brave enough to speak out. The
problem that we've encountered here in Qld is that the midwives in the system
are too afraid for their jobs (and rightly so), plus we don't want to lose our
good midwives and consumers are often not all that keen to speak out after their
babies are born because they just want to get on with
things.
There are two things we need to
do to get more of women's stories out to the media... get those who have already
left the system to speak out and encourage consumers to speak out.
We have had several situations
warranting this...a couple of egs. are... a woman having to drive down
from Toowoomba in labour to give birth at the birth centre because the hospital
DON in Toowoomba said they don't "do natural birth" there because the obs.
students need more practice at intervention.... A woman being told she had to
have a c-section when she wanted a vaginal breech birth (this one we
successfully leaked to the media and got good coverage) at a public hospital in
Brisbane, a woman being told she would be forced to have a caesarean simply
because she'd had a previous one (also in Toowoomba).
Please think seriously about
these issues and how you can help get them onto the media agenda. A programme
like Sunday is good because they are investigative and the journos are
reputable. Ross is sympathetic to our cause and all he needs is lots more
stories like these so it warrants further investigation on his part. ... A few
brave whistle blowers are needed.
Cheers,
Cas.
Cas McCullough
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