Should c/s rates be published? Naming & shaming...

[norquesta]

I agree wholeheartedly with Kazznazz. With the 2 hospitals with the 43% vs 5% C/S rates. If the hospital with high rates are frequently on bypass they might be open during the week & be able to do elective C/S and any inductions but being closed on weekends might actually have women who birth vaginally but do so at the other hospital. While this wouldn't explain such a high percentage it might explain part of it. l

I was told by the hospital admin worker that the hosptials I spoke about are on shared by pass - they take turns, rotate the weekends between them - if anyone has information that is different, please let us know.

I will be looking into this further during the week, I'm interested in why there is such a huge difference. I will also find out when the 2007 stats are coming out, as that might be different to the 2006 ones, well at least I hope so.

[studentmum]

Sushee I agree 100% with all your posts!!!

Lea - as myself and others have suggested cs rates alone are not sufficient data but at least they are a start.


Neenee Jellybeanie I agree wholeheartedly! I wonder if 603 women would have voted differently had they left the word shaming out of the question and just asked should data be available???

Also 'elective C/S' doesn't mean asked for by the woman or her doctor, it just means the need for a C/S was decided prior to labour, while an 'emergency' is during labour, thus a pre-booked C/S for grade 4 placenta praevia is still classed as 'elective' even if not woman's preferred choice of birth pif all was well

midi27 - I had an in labour vbac cs and it was documented as elective.


I think we should assume that women who want access to this information are capable of interpreting it.


Bottom line: I had 2 cs for no valid reason, one was due to an evil ob and one was due to hospital policy. If stats were known to all and available my choices may have been different, until we try that how are we to know. I am vba2c again (only this time I will succeed) I have had to research to the ends of the earth to ensure my best possible chances, it has been HELL, hospitals do not want to give up info if they can help it and we as consumers of theirs should not have to harrass them to get it - I have been lied to and only know I have been lied to as I am a nursing student. ALL stats should be made public and be easy to find via googling NOT in restricted access journal articles!

AS for obs with cs rates as high as 85%, if you don't want to know who he is enjoy your Russian roulette but for me, NAME AND SHAME THE KNIFE HAPPY BUGGER!!!!

This thread was exhausting, I am sure I will be lured back though...

Sarah

[suse]

I can try to find out norquesta - my mum works at Stawell hospital, and my dad was an ambo at Ararat.

Ararat is a small hospital though (it recently had an upgrade / renovation but I don't know which services were affected), my understanding is that they transfer most of their c/s patients to either Stawell or Ballarat, quite possibly the 5% are those that cannot be safely transferred.