Wagga midwives abused after ACA report

ABC News

Wagga Wagga Base Hospital midwives, in southern New South Wales, say they have felt scared after being abused on the street since a report on maternity mistakes this week.

The New South Wales Midwives Association says midwives have been publicly blamed by some people for the mistakes, which were aired in a Channel Nine report.

The channel's A Current Affair program cited several cases of malpractice involving the Wagga base maternity unit.

The group's secretary, Hannah Dahlen, says the Wagga Base midwives have been unfairly targeted.

"They've been very upset at the depiction. They are of course always very distraught when something goes wrong in maternity care, but I think we need to realise that things do go wrong in maternity care, and when they do go wrong, we need to look at the systems that cause things to go wrong, rather than targeting individuals," she said.

The chairman of the area health advisory council, Dr Ian Stewart, agrees the staff should not be targeted for mistakes in maternity.

"Let me say at the outset, as an obstetrician of over three decades experience, adverse events in obstetrics happen, even in the most well-organised tertiary institutions. It's just the nature of the speciality and the nature of the matter of child birth," he said.