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Dear SMH,
I applaud your Saturday's front page stand
for 1 caring service seeking to support struggling parents in difficult times.
However the media is ignoring the fact that all
Australian women, their families and community are loosing the right and
ability to access the internationally most appropriate carers for normal healthy
women; midwives. When women have the continuous
care of 1 midwife through-out their pregnancy they become more than their own
baby's "Whisperer", they become confident in their ability to birth and mother
effectively!
But there are insufficient numbers of
Midwives in Private Practice to be financially attractive to insurance companies
who provide Professional Indemnity Insurance and they do not have the political
clout of the AMA to get the government to act on their behalf. The latter is
despite 30 national enquiries which have recommended increasing midwifery
options of care in response to our growing level of costly medical interventions
in childbirth.
Thankfully the true value of midwifery is not lost
on the Greens and Democrat parties who have adopted as health policy a consumer
driven plan (The National Maternity Action Plan).
Perhaps when media such as the SMH,
eventually equitably examines this world best practice primary
health option, readers (and politicians) will see that universal access
to midwives for healthy Australian families can ease much of the pain of
early family life and the present strains on Medicare in maternity service
areas
Yours sincerely
Denise Hynd.
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