Readers of this blog may remember previous links to CROAKEY, the health blog of the independent news reporting organisation CRIKEY.
Here's a new post, focusing on the Australian Medical Association (AMA), and its claim that its president Dr Andrew Pesce, should be seen as the “Chief Health Policy advisor to all political parties”.
This is not the first time Dr Pesche has assumed the role. His influence on Health Minister Roxon in the report of the Maternity Services Review and subsequent legislation, particularly in requiring midwives to have 'collaborative arrangements' with doctors, is already on the record.
Tuesday, April 13, 2010
Wednesday, April 7, 2010
World Health Day, April 7, 2010: 1000 Cities, 1000 Lives
Join La Leche League International (LLLI) and the World Alliance for Breastfeeding Action (WABA) In Celebration of – World Health Day, April 7, 2010:
1000 Cities, 1000 Lives
This year’s World Health Day theme addresses the challenges surrounding the growing urban population. The World Health Organization is calling upon cities across the globe to be counted among the “1000 cities” dedicated to improving the health in urban areas.
The Challenges
• Virtually all population growth over the next 30 years will be in urban areas.
• The urban poor suffer disproportionately from a wide range of diseases and other health problems.
• The major drivers of health in urban settings are beyond the health sector.
• Actions and solutions exist to tackle the root causes of urban health challenges.
• Build partnerships with multiple sectors of society to make cities healthier.
Breastfeeding: A Paradigm for Change
What role might breastfeeding play in addressing the challenges and offering at least a partial solution?
... [read more]
1000 Cities, 1000 Lives
This year’s World Health Day theme addresses the challenges surrounding the growing urban population. The World Health Organization is calling upon cities across the globe to be counted among the “1000 cities” dedicated to improving the health in urban areas.
The Challenges
• Virtually all population growth over the next 30 years will be in urban areas.
• The urban poor suffer disproportionately from a wide range of diseases and other health problems.
• The major drivers of health in urban settings are beyond the health sector.
• Actions and solutions exist to tackle the root causes of urban health challenges.
• Build partnerships with multiple sectors of society to make cities healthier.
Breastfeeding: A Paradigm for Change
What role might breastfeeding play in addressing the challenges and offering at least a partial solution?
... [read more]
Monday, April 5, 2010
from Homebirth Australia
An Extraordinary General Meeting will be convened 21 April via Teleconference.
For more information, or to join Homebirth Australia, go to the website.
For more information, or to join Homebirth Australia, go to the website.
Wednesday, March 24, 2010
'The world needs midwives now more than ever'
International Midwives Day - 5th May 2010
Midwives around the world celebrate the 'International Day of the Midwife' on May 5th every year. The aim of the day is to celebrate midwifery and to bring awareness of the importance of midwives' work to as many people around the world as possible.
The recurrent ICM theme for 2010 is 'the world needs midwives now more than ever.' This theme was created in 2009 in response to a need to increase Midwife numbers around the world to achieve WHO Millennium Development Goals (MDGs) by 2015. In total 350,000 more midwives are needed by 2015 in order to:
- Improve Maternal Health;
- Reduce Child Mortality; and
- Combat HIV/AIDS, Malaria and Other Diseases.
Achieving the Millennium Development Goals requires a global, national and local commitment to grow a strong, well-educated midwifery workforce within functioning health service delivery systems.
Although the Millennium Development Goals seek to enable improvements in health for the most disadvantaged people in the world - people who do not usually come into the care of independent midwives in Australia - these goals are as important in middle class Melbourne as they are in the slums of the world's poorest countries.
Australian independent midwives promote health for mothers, babies and families. Our statistical data demonstrate excellent outcomes for mothers and babies in our care.
More information, and items to help with local celebrations can be got from the College of Midwives.
Midwives around the world celebrate the 'International Day of the Midwife' on May 5th every year. The aim of the day is to celebrate midwifery and to bring awareness of the importance of midwives' work to as many people around the world as possible.
The recurrent ICM theme for 2010 is 'the world needs midwives now more than ever.' This theme was created in 2009 in response to a need to increase Midwife numbers around the world to achieve WHO Millennium Development Goals (MDGs) by 2015. In total 350,000 more midwives are needed by 2015 in order to:
- Improve Maternal Health;
- Reduce Child Mortality; and
- Combat HIV/AIDS, Malaria and Other Diseases.
Achieving the Millennium Development Goals requires a global, national and local commitment to grow a strong, well-educated midwifery workforce within functioning health service delivery systems.
Although the Millennium Development Goals seek to enable improvements in health for the most disadvantaged people in the world - people who do not usually come into the care of independent midwives in Australia - these goals are as important in middle class Melbourne as they are in the slums of the world's poorest countries.
Australian independent midwives promote health for mothers, babies and families. Our statistical data demonstrate excellent outcomes for mothers and babies in our care.
More information, and items to help with local celebrations can be got from the College of Midwives.
Wednesday, March 17, 2010
GO GIRL Australia!
Check out her website at
www.gogirlaustralia.net.au
Friday, March 12, 2010
Reclaiming Birth RALLY in the UK
Around 1,000 men, women and children turned out, the procession filled Westminster Bridge, as far as the eye could see there were flags and banners. The fight goes on.
Friday, March 5, 2010
Maternity reform hijacked 3
Professional indemnity insurance
One of the key features of the new national health practitioner legislation is the mandating of the requirement for professional indemnity insurance for all registered health professionals. Midwives stand alone in the field, as the only group unable to purchase private indemnity insurance.
Midwives in Canada and New Zealand practise with government provisions for professional indemnity insurance, being treated equitably with other maternity service providers, ie doctors. Midwives in Australia, by comparison, have been repeatedly sidelined in all government provisions for indemnity, giving doctors privilege across the scope of maternity services. Midwives who are employed by hospitals or health services are covered by vicarious liability provisions, as well as by insurance which is part of membership in the union, the Australian Nursing Federation, Victorian Branch. Midwives who practise independently, who are self employed, have done so without indemnity insurance since about 2001. Under the legislative reforms that are today being debated, the best that the federal government has offered this group of self employed midwives is a two-year exemption from being required to have private indemnity insurance for home birth. This is an irrational approach to dealing with a real problem. It simply puts the problem under the mat with the rest of the dust.
That small group of self-employed midwives, probably less than 50, who provide private midwifery services for less than one% of Victoria's birthing population, have been sidelined in the federal government's Report of the Maternity Services Review, and in subsequent legislative reforms. These midwives and the women who employ them have become an unwanted and aggravating minority group, writing multiple submissions to inquiries, and letters to politicians. Thousands of mothers, fathers, and little children, with midwives and other concerned people, have rallied in sites around the country, and have experienced the dictator Rudd's response that he is unmoved. These people are intelligent, and they vote. They know their human rights to self-determination in all matters of their own bodies. They know that pregnancy and birth is not an illness, and they know that the midwife is in many cases the most appropriate professional able to provide primary maternity care, with a commitment to protecting and working in harmony with natural physiological processes. They also know that the botched reform of this federal government is likely to restrict their choices in maternity care, rather than improve access and choice.
Doctors who provide maternity services, that is, specialist obstetricians and general practitioner obstetricians (GP-Obs) receive huge public funding to ensure indemnity insurance for their private practices. There is no rational reason why midwives should not receive similar government support. Victorian Health Minister Andrews, and other state and territory health ministers, together with their federal counterpart, have blocked any such suggestions.
The focus so far in health practitioner regulation has been the federal political scene, because the primary legislation is national. The Victorian Health Department now has responsibility nationally to develop a Safety and Quality Framework that will be required for midwives to continue their private practices and be entitled to the two-year exemption from indemnity for attending home births. This process is already wobbly. Many stakeholders in all states and territories have appeared before the Department's consultants, and the only thing that is clear is that nothing is clear.
Collaborative arrangements
Health Minister Roxon has repeatedly asserted that "The Government's intention has always been to ensure that the midwife and nurse practitioner reforms are underpinned by collaborative arrangements between health professionals."
Collaboration in its true sense, 'co-labor(ing)', is fundamental to a midwife's practice. The midwife's definition and scope of practice require referral to a doctor or suitable medical service when complications requiring medical intervention arise. But midwifery does not stop when a complication is detected and care becomes more complex. The midwife continues with the woman, and collaborates with doctors, nurses, pathologists, physiotherapists, dentists, or whoever else is able to provide care that will be in the interests of the wellbeing of mother and child.
The requirement for collaborative arrangements has been brought through into legislative amendments as an agreement signed by a doctor or doctors. It seems that Minister Roxon's tunnel vision expects that midwives will be able to find doctors who will sign off as agreeing to collaborate with them. Many midwives anticipate that any such request would be met with refusal by the doctors in their communities. The medical union, the Australian Medical Association (AMA), as well as the obstetricians professional body, Royal Australian and New Zealand College of Obstetricians and Gynaecologists (RANZCOG), have been outspoken in their opposition to private midwifery and homebirth. The requirement for up-front signed agreements around collaboration is handing the power of veto of midwifery private practice to the medical profession.
There is no requirement for doctors to access signed collaborative agreements signed by midwives. Yet all doctors providing maternity services NEED midwives to work with them - that's understood.
It seems that Minister Roxon's tunnel vision has missed the obvious fact that if an uninsured midwife is attending home birth, it is highly unlikely - even impossible - that a doctor's insurance provider would agree to indemnify the doctor who enters a collaborative arrangement with that midwife.
For further comment on this topic, go to
Part 1 Background
Part 2 Consumer choice, and Competition Considerations
One of the key features of the new national health practitioner legislation is the mandating of the requirement for professional indemnity insurance for all registered health professionals. Midwives stand alone in the field, as the only group unable to purchase private indemnity insurance.
Midwives in Canada and New Zealand practise with government provisions for professional indemnity insurance, being treated equitably with other maternity service providers, ie doctors. Midwives in Australia, by comparison, have been repeatedly sidelined in all government provisions for indemnity, giving doctors privilege across the scope of maternity services. Midwives who are employed by hospitals or health services are covered by vicarious liability provisions, as well as by insurance which is part of membership in the union, the Australian Nursing Federation, Victorian Branch. Midwives who practise independently, who are self employed, have done so without indemnity insurance since about 2001. Under the legislative reforms that are today being debated, the best that the federal government has offered this group of self employed midwives is a two-year exemption from being required to have private indemnity insurance for home birth. This is an irrational approach to dealing with a real problem. It simply puts the problem under the mat with the rest of the dust.
That small group of self-employed midwives, probably less than 50, who provide private midwifery services for less than one% of Victoria's birthing population, have been sidelined in the federal government's Report of the Maternity Services Review, and in subsequent legislative reforms. These midwives and the women who employ them have become an unwanted and aggravating minority group, writing multiple submissions to inquiries, and letters to politicians. Thousands of mothers, fathers, and little children, with midwives and other concerned people, have rallied in sites around the country, and have experienced the dictator Rudd's response that he is unmoved. These people are intelligent, and they vote. They know their human rights to self-determination in all matters of their own bodies. They know that pregnancy and birth is not an illness, and they know that the midwife is in many cases the most appropriate professional able to provide primary maternity care, with a commitment to protecting and working in harmony with natural physiological processes. They also know that the botched reform of this federal government is likely to restrict their choices in maternity care, rather than improve access and choice.
Doctors who provide maternity services, that is, specialist obstetricians and general practitioner obstetricians (GP-Obs) receive huge public funding to ensure indemnity insurance for their private practices. There is no rational reason why midwives should not receive similar government support. Victorian Health Minister Andrews, and other state and territory health ministers, together with their federal counterpart, have blocked any such suggestions.
The focus so far in health practitioner regulation has been the federal political scene, because the primary legislation is national. The Victorian Health Department now has responsibility nationally to develop a Safety and Quality Framework that will be required for midwives to continue their private practices and be entitled to the two-year exemption from indemnity for attending home births. This process is already wobbly. Many stakeholders in all states and territories have appeared before the Department's consultants, and the only thing that is clear is that nothing is clear.
Collaborative arrangements
Health Minister Roxon has repeatedly asserted that "The Government's intention has always been to ensure that the midwife and nurse practitioner reforms are underpinned by collaborative arrangements between health professionals."
Collaboration in its true sense, 'co-labor(ing)', is fundamental to a midwife's practice. The midwife's definition and scope of practice require referral to a doctor or suitable medical service when complications requiring medical intervention arise. But midwifery does not stop when a complication is detected and care becomes more complex. The midwife continues with the woman, and collaborates with doctors, nurses, pathologists, physiotherapists, dentists, or whoever else is able to provide care that will be in the interests of the wellbeing of mother and child.
The requirement for collaborative arrangements has been brought through into legislative amendments as an agreement signed by a doctor or doctors. It seems that Minister Roxon's tunnel vision expects that midwives will be able to find doctors who will sign off as agreeing to collaborate with them. Many midwives anticipate that any such request would be met with refusal by the doctors in their communities. The medical union, the Australian Medical Association (AMA), as well as the obstetricians professional body, Royal Australian and New Zealand College of Obstetricians and Gynaecologists (RANZCOG), have been outspoken in their opposition to private midwifery and homebirth. The requirement for up-front signed agreements around collaboration is handing the power of veto of midwifery private practice to the medical profession.
There is no requirement for doctors to access signed collaborative agreements signed by midwives. Yet all doctors providing maternity services NEED midwives to work with them - that's understood.
It seems that Minister Roxon's tunnel vision has missed the obvious fact that if an uninsured midwife is attending home birth, it is highly unlikely - even impossible - that a doctor's insurance provider would agree to indemnify the doctor who enters a collaborative arrangement with that midwife.
For further comment on this topic, go to
Part 1 Background
Part 2 Consumer choice, and Competition Considerations
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