Dear Barb Health administrators are scared and they have only a very scant understanding of law.
Oh Barb, this is very sad. I understand the law (I read the act) and I am a Mum at home in her PJ's most of the time! NO EXCUSE, if they are making decisions about practice and citing litigation they don't understand as a reason then that is even more dangerous! The fact is outside of catastrophic injury their is little any one can claim any more (In NSW and the ACT especially). To get anything you need to claim at least 10% permanent injury (and that's considerable) How does one respond to that mothers loss? How can one say "evidence shows ....' to a woman dealing with a loss. Part of the problem is we have a generation of consumers who do not understand adverse outcomes can occur no matter how diligent one is. They look for blame and financial gain. Another we have non-clinicians and I include some consumer groups here, making rules and decisions without understanding how the system works nor how toxic the working environment is for midwives. Naturally it is very difficult, when dealing with such loss to imply well hey it sometimes happen, but again it is the truth. Loss like this will always be devastating but when a woman has a trusting relationship with a midwife she knows then it has to help. As for consumers making rules. Consumers are advocating for choice and from your e-mail it and the many thousands of other anecdotes we hear it is ABSOLUTELY NECESSARY. Barb you are doing your best (like so many more). Please don't fall into the trap of thinking that when we criticise the 'system' we are criticising you as an individual. We will continue to fail if midwives respond 'personally' to our criticisms of the system. Unfortunately 95% of midwifery staff are part-time that come to WORK for 8 hours will not challenge this directive, they are not interested. A general comment and I apologise in advance to those who are not like this "they have a good balance in their life/work arrangement". Yet another reason for major change, that acknowledges what midwifery is and enables a scope of midwifery practice. Then you wouldn't have to fight continuously! Also why can't midwives work caseload practice part-time? In a group practice of 3 (with back-up for on-call etc) but with a designated caseload women would have much better care and midwives would work as they were trained through the continuum. With this model it would also be necessary to assert the scope of practice so you would not need to tango with the CTG etc etc. I remember what struck me most about labour for the first time it is from Janet Balaskas. She says birth is like the ocean, if you fight the current (rip) you may be pulled under and drown. If you go with it, you will go further than you have ever before, but later you will be able to swim back to the safety of the shore! Perhaps we all need to apply this to the urgent need for maternity services reform. Change can be scary but when we look at what we have, it can't be much worse! In solidarity JC xx -- This mailing list is sponsored by ACE Graphics. Visit <http://www.acegraphics.com.au> to subscribe or unsubscribe.
