While I’ve been away there were lots of meetings in Canberra on the future of midwifery with the government committees involved. The participants had to sign a confidentiality agreement. How dare the government do this. Not only are they meeting behind closed doors but nobody at the meeting can say what has happened. Until the stuff is signed, sealed and delivered the midwives and women have no clue of what is going on. So what, there is a consumer rep and midwife rep. If the rest of us don’t know what is happening at the meeting how can we tell if our voices are being heard. Of course we know they aren’t.
We have gleaned that the exemption isn’t as easy as it seems. To qualify you will first have to be an eligible midwife (we still don’t know what this is) and get insurance for antenatal and postnatal care before being exempt for homebirth. Will the midwives currently working in homebirth get a grandmother clause to automatically become eligible? Not on your life. We are the very midwives they want to get rid of while they try and make some new super midwife who will do everything the government and the AMA require, gaining compliance from all women.
I think we should demand to know what is going on at these meetings. We shouldn’t have to redefine midwifery and we shouldn’t be going backwards on this stuff.
It seems that the AMA have said they will play hard ball if we come close to anything that would work (my words and opinion here folks). We how bad can it be? We go around killing babies and putting women at risk. We all know that. Maybe now they could just leave us alone. Even if we killed the amount of babies they say it would STILL be safer that what they do at the hospital. That is proven in figures that are put forward, Unnecessary damage from intervention. Postnatal depression in the community due to trauma. A healthy society begins with birth.
They are waiting in the wings to get us (me in particular). Why is it nobody can understand that going with the woman’s wishes will keep society healthy in the long run. Quantum physics and epigenetics are the latest discoveries in science that will really show that the old fashioned medical practice is not as solid as we all thought. We have far more dimension that we previously believed.
It seems that the Canadian system, something that has been suggested better than what is on offer here, can put into perspective what we can expect.
A midwife needs insurance to be registered. To get insurance she has to have practicing rights at the hospital (for Australia read collaboration). Once insurance and registered she can go ahead and get clients. If she follows the clients wishes and they are against the hospital wishes, her practicing rights will get cancelled. Without these she can no longer gain insurance or be registered. Now I’m sure there are many creative ways that midwives help women through this, but essentially this is the system.
Is this what we want, everything controlled by the Obs at the hospital, the insurance company and the government?
After the rally so much has gone quiet- but they are rolling along behind closed doors. I don’t like it one bit. They are all paranoid that anything they say will get blogged. FFS the public should know how they are being shafted. Midwives should stand shoulder to shoulder with the women and we should continue to say NO.
p.s. Dear Dr Lavender, would you like to go out for lunch this week? Love Lisa.
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"you will first have to be an eligible midwife(we still don't know what this is) and get insurance for antenatal and postnatal care before being exempt for homebirth"
So, in order to gain the exemption you first need to meet all the criteria which the exemption was supposed to exempt you from??? Riiiight. They're a bunch of nutters.
What can consumers do to continue the fight?
I can't believe how everything has been left so quiet since the Rally! I've repeatedly checked Aust. birth sites (maternity coalition, HBA etc.) and no one is mentioning what is happening!
The general consensus from public (comments on news articles, pregnancy sites etc.) think that anyone planning to have a homebirth are lucky because of the 'exemption', as if all the problems for the 'hippy' mothers have been magically resolved and we should be grateful to have this choice at all. Such BS!!
Just as you say, this is not eventuating into a matter of freedom of rights and choices, but a matter of choices within the boundaries of what we're allowed to do and what we're told.
With all the impossible hoops that midwives attending homebirths will have to jump through, it looks like my only homebirth choice will be a freebirth.
I totally agree – facing the birth of my first child in hospital in a few weeks, (Husband not supportive of homebirth, for the first) but I was really hoping the second could be one. Now it seems I have to have a freebirth if i want that option. I am confident in my baby, body and researching that I could handle a freebirth but that doesn't mean I want to! I want options!
Consumers can (and need to) continue to voice their concerns about the legislation. Most importantly, we need to continue to write and call Senators – again- (the legislation is currently in the Senate).
Continue to try to get press coverage in local, regional and national media.
We need to continue to talk about it with friends, family and anyone who will listen to raise awareness of the issues.
It is difficult to keep up momentum on the issue with jobs/family/busy lives but if we don't, nobody will.
On this website is a list of key senators to target with contact details. http://earthmamasweb.com/
Of course the subject hasn't disappeared- they just don't want us to know about it- because try have realised the 'power' we can have eg the rally!
Todays announcemt from Nicola is scary….. To claim Medicare a MW must work with an Ob or GP!!! We are totally fucked now! Thanks AMA, I mean Nicola….
" Dear Dr Lavender, would you like to go out for lunch this week?. "
Classic!
"Quantum physics and epigenetics are the latest discoveries in science"
Really – did you miss the last 109 years since the quantum hypothesis was proposed by Max Planck (yes, it really was in 1900 – on the back of work begun in the mid 1800s)?
Are you aware that we have known about epigenetics (specifically genomic imprinting) via it's role in Angelman and Prader-Willi syndromes since 1989 (yes, 20 years ago!)?
These are areas of science that are older than antibiotics (introduced during WWII).
I am going through your posts and just saw this reference to canadian midwives. I am a midwife in Quebec, Canada (French part of it). We don’t work with priviledges in hospitals and we don’t have to follow their protocoles. However, we have to follow our Règlement, which is a legal document saying for example, that we have to do a consult with a doctor for postdatism (past 42 weeks), than the couple will decide what to do with the recommandation. We can follow women having VBACS, but no breach (which is too bad, but I’m hoping it will change). Just to say that I feel we have more freedom because any midwive working in the province follows the Règlement and there is no OBS who can change the way we work (they had their say in the Règlement though I beleive – lobbying wise).