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Hi everyone,
apologies for cross postings
this is the aap's take on the summit
yesterday.
basically the smh also ran with the aap line but
good to have the 'original' so to speak.
Congrats to everyone in Mareeba and Townsville on
the timely move from transition to birth.
Kind Regards
Sally-Anne
----- Original Message -----
To: Sally-Anne Brown
Sent: Thursday, June 16, 2005 10:53 AM
Subject: AAP story: Abbotts private health insurance
angle Fed: Midwife groups call for govt help in securing insurance
Indemnity Midwives By Melissa Polimeni CANBERRA, June 15 AAP - Women are being denied childbirth choices because the government is failing to help midwives secure medical indemnity insurance, midwife groups say. Representatives of the midwives meeting in Canberra today called on the government to step in and protect private practitioners by helping them secure indemnity insurance and cover their services through Medicare. Their call was backed by Labor and the minor parties. Jan Robinson of the Australian Society of Independent Midwives said that while the government had helped doctors and other medical professionals through an earlier insurance crisis, midwives had been largely ignored. "The reality is that since we have lost our ability to access professional indemnity insurance, a lot of our members have been forced to quit their practices," Ms Robinson said. The government spent almost $600 million to resolve the doctors' negligence insurance crisis since the near collapse of the nation's biggest insurer, United Medical Protection (UMP), in 2002. The intervention helped prevent a mass walkout by doctors and included direct subsidies to insurers to cut premium costs. Ms Robinson said the government should now step in to help midwives, to give women greater childbirth choices. "There are many women giving birth at home unattended because they cannot access a midwife who will care for them in a private capacity. "And they do not have the trust or the faith in the hospital system to go there and have their babies." But Health Minister Tony Abbott said the government could not force insurers to provide coverage to midwives. "The government is aware that insurance companies won't indemnify self-employed midwives," Mr Abbott said in a statement. "However, the government cannot compel insurance providers to cover independent midwives and the government is not an insurer. "The governments of Western Australia, the Northern Territory and the ACT have extended indemnity coverage to include self-employed midwives and I would encourage the other states to follow." Mr Abbott said the government was willing to help midwives through private health insurance measures. "If the midwives wanted to put a proposal to the government to have independent midwives' services covered by private health insurance we would consider it," he said. Australian Democrats Leader Lyn Allison urged the government to go further and provide Medicare numbers for midwifery services. "If this government is about choice it needs to fix the Medicare schedules so that midwives can be included," Senator Allison said. AAP mjp/sb/jt/sd
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