Protesters seek better midwife services

Protesters seek better midwife services

September 28, 2007 - 5:49PM

With six young children and a midwifery degree, Janie Nottingham knows how a midwife can make pregnancy and birth "exquisite" experiences.

But in Australia it was almost impossible to access the important service, she said.

Ms Nottingham brought together at least 200 protesters outside Parliament House in Canberra on Friday to demand the federal government implement a funding package for a midwifery care scheme.

"They need to allow women to have that choice," Maternity Coalition President Cas McCullough told AAP.

"They need to resolve the insurance professional indemnity crisis that midwives currently face because at the moment midwives are unable to get professional indemnity insurance and that prevents them from providing the care that women would like and need."

Ms McCullough said midwives were only available to two per cent of Australians, while in New Zealand 78 per cent had the choice.

She was a loud voice in the chorus of mostly female protesters, chanting repeatedly: "What do we want? Midwives! When do we want them. Now!"

Ms Nottingham was leading the chant, having driven up to Canberra from the Mornington Peninsula in Victoria with her six children.

Based on her experience, Ms Nottingham told AAP how important it was for the federal government to invest in midwife services.

"I have progressed through the system - I can say quite happily I've sampled the lot and I can tell you categorically which one is the best," she said.

Only with her last baby, who is now three months old, did Ms Nottingham use the full services of midwives.

"It was magic," she said.

"Every birth that I've had has honestly been beautiful but certainly the things and the quality that made the last one exquisite were the fact that I knew who was coming and I had two beautiful midwives."

But that is an experience that only a minority of women can experience in Australia and Ms Nottingham was only able to secure the pair as they were friends.

If midwives were more readily available, one protester said, a sad situation in Sydney earlier this week would not have happened.

Senate candidate for the What Women Want party Justine Caines said that Jana Horska would not have miscarried in the bathrooms of the Royal North Shore Hospital on Tuesday night, after waiting to be seen by doctors for two hours.

"It would not have happened - would not have happened because under the model that we're advocating for, that woman already would've had a midwife that she would've known and she would've gone through that traumatic event with somebody that she knew - she would've had a point of contact," Ms Caines told AAP.

And, she said, a significant investment in midwifery would actually save the federal government money.

"In fact it would save millions - we are seeing absolute rorting of our Medicare Safety Net from obstetricians - a 269 per cent increase (in their fees) since the safety net was adopted in 2004.

"So if we adopted appropriate midwifery care we would see gigantic savings."

Labor senator Kate Lundy was at the protest and said Labor would review the Medicare schedule to include midwives in the provision of maternity care and help expand midwife-led care.

"Federal Labor understands how important it is that women not only have a range of birthing services available in their communities, but also that women are provided with information about their options open to them," Senator Lundy said.

A spokesman for Health Minister Tony Abbott said the government had no intention of changing the current arrangements.