Midwife Professional Indemnity (Commonwealth Contribution) Scheme Bill 2009
Go to the Parliamentary Library's information, analysis and advice for the Parliament to read this
Bills Digest
Quote (page 4):
"While the review report argued that women needed comprehensive and reliable information about the range of antenatal, birthing and postnatal care, one omission in the area of birthing options that some consider it did not address in detail—homebirthing—has become the subject of considerable debate."
Friday, September 25, 2009
Wednesday, September 23, 2009
Home birthing: the fiscal nips and tucks to our health system
This article, written by Queensland Federal MP Andrew Laming, and published in Australia's e-journal of social and political debate, brings together a political and medical view of the issue. Andrew Laming was a GP/obstetrician prior to entering politics. He wrote ...
"All politics is local, and more often than not personal. Just a fraction of Australians birth at home but their fervour is at times evangelical. In Canberra’s grey rain this week, 2,000 devoted mums and midwives won a two-year reprieve from being deregistered and fined if they attend a home birth.
"But there were few cheers for Minister Roxon’s back flip. Landmark reform stemming from the recent National Maternity Services Review proposes autonomy for midwives around prescribing certain drugs and ordering tests as well as long awaited access to Medicare and indemnity cover. But for home birthing midwives, there will neither be Medicare support nor any form of indemnity protection.
"When it comes to the safety of low-risk mums birthing at home, the world’s foremost medical evidence authority is the Cochrane Collaboration. With appropriate hospital support says Cochrane, home birth and hospital mortality for low-risk bubs is comparable. Cochrane believes women have a right to choose between the two options.
"A final fillip for home births is that Cochrane acknowledges that outcomes for mums may actually be worse in hospitals. The largest of all studies was a nationwide cohort of 529,688 low-risk planned home and hospital births by de Jonge in the Netherlands. It found "that planning a homebirth does not increase the risks of perinatal mortality and severe perinatal morbidity among low-risk women, provided the maternity care system facilitates this choice through the availability of well-trained midwives and through a good transportation and referral system"."
[Click here for the complete article and reader comment]
The comments are worth reading - some of them are almost amusing!
"Most big hospitals now have good birthing suites that provide as close to the home-birth experience as possible, while still having medical help close by."
"Australia is not as small in distances as New Zealand or England, where home-birthing is more common. The homes in those countries are much closer to hospitals and ambulance services should anything go wrong with the birth."
"Home births require a dedicated nurse to travel, and not be available to anyone else, and require the back up of the ambulance service. Home birthing is thus more expensive for no health benefits, and so I can understand why the funding has been withdrawn."
Read the comments in context. Please let us know what you think!
"All politics is local, and more often than not personal. Just a fraction of Australians birth at home but their fervour is at times evangelical. In Canberra’s grey rain this week, 2,000 devoted mums and midwives won a two-year reprieve from being deregistered and fined if they attend a home birth.
"But there were few cheers for Minister Roxon’s back flip. Landmark reform stemming from the recent National Maternity Services Review proposes autonomy for midwives around prescribing certain drugs and ordering tests as well as long awaited access to Medicare and indemnity cover. But for home birthing midwives, there will neither be Medicare support nor any form of indemnity protection.
"When it comes to the safety of low-risk mums birthing at home, the world’s foremost medical evidence authority is the Cochrane Collaboration. With appropriate hospital support says Cochrane, home birth and hospital mortality for low-risk bubs is comparable. Cochrane believes women have a right to choose between the two options.
"A final fillip for home births is that Cochrane acknowledges that outcomes for mums may actually be worse in hospitals. The largest of all studies was a nationwide cohort of 529,688 low-risk planned home and hospital births by de Jonge in the Netherlands. It found "that planning a homebirth does not increase the risks of perinatal mortality and severe perinatal morbidity among low-risk women, provided the maternity care system facilitates this choice through the availability of well-trained midwives and through a good transportation and referral system"."
[Click here for the complete article and reader comment]
The comments are worth reading - some of them are almost amusing!
"Most big hospitals now have good birthing suites that provide as close to the home-birth experience as possible, while still having medical help close by."
"Australia is not as small in distances as New Zealand or England, where home-birthing is more common. The homes in those countries are much closer to hospitals and ambulance services should anything go wrong with the birth."
"Home births require a dedicated nurse to travel, and not be available to anyone else, and require the back up of the ambulance service. Home birthing is thus more expensive for no health benefits, and so I can understand why the funding has been withdrawn."
Read the comments in context. Please let us know what you think!
Tuesday, September 15, 2009
sexual health and intimacy after childbirth
The Murdoch Childrens Research Institute Maternal Health Study is to launch its publication, sexual health and intimacy after childbirth in October.
Midwives in Private Practice has been invited to attend the launch.
Copies of the study's 12-page brochure outlining what women had to say, in their own words, about changes to sexual health, sexuality and intimate relationships as a result of pregnancy, childbirth and parenting, are available from hmhf@mcri.edu.au, or by phoning 03 9090 5204.
Thursday, September 10, 2009
Media from the rally
Jane Palmer's montage of photos and video footage.
While a crowd of 2000-3000 people wearing babies, holding umbrellas, and waving placards, gathered outside in the rain, the debate about midwifery proceeded in the House of Representatives. It has been reported that the Hansard record of the proceedings on Monday includes the mention of Midwives over 300 times!!! That has to be a record.
Here's a summary of media on the homebirth rally which has been circulated to the email lists.
ABC
SBS
SBS
Brisbane Times
Sunrise
The Age
yahoo
ninemsn
The quality of the reporting from the rally was disappointing, yet it is consistent with the general apathy in the press towards physiologically normal human issues.
What other issue has engnedered a similar response: thousands of written submissions by ordinary Australians to government inquiries, and thousands of voters willing to travel to Canberra and protest outside Parliament House? The number of mothers who access private midwifery care for homebirth in this country is small - there's no denying that fact. Yet those women and families are entitled to respect, equity and safety in their maternity care. Those midwives are also entitled to respect in their professional practices.
Australia is not a totalitarian country. All statutory regulations must be in the public interest. It's clear that Nicola Roxon and her team got it wrong on the value and importance of homebirth with a private midwife. The legislation must be amended, or discarded. The partnership of homebirth and private midwifery is not an insignificant item that can be swept under the mat in a bureaucratic tidy up of maternity care. We are real people, we care deeply about birth and the whole maternity episode within life's complex continuum, and we vote.
While a crowd of 2000-3000 people wearing babies, holding umbrellas, and waving placards, gathered outside in the rain, the debate about midwifery proceeded in the House of Representatives. It has been reported that the Hansard record of the proceedings on Monday includes the mention of Midwives over 300 times!!! That has to be a record.
Here's a summary of media on the homebirth rally which has been circulated to the email lists.
ABC
SBS
SBS
Brisbane Times
Sunrise
The Age
yahoo
ninemsn
The quality of the reporting from the rally was disappointing, yet it is consistent with the general apathy in the press towards physiologically normal human issues.
What other issue has engnedered a similar response: thousands of written submissions by ordinary Australians to government inquiries, and thousands of voters willing to travel to Canberra and protest outside Parliament House? The number of mothers who access private midwifery care for homebirth in this country is small - there's no denying that fact. Yet those women and families are entitled to respect, equity and safety in their maternity care. Those midwives are also entitled to respect in their professional practices.
Australia is not a totalitarian country. All statutory regulations must be in the public interest. It's clear that Nicola Roxon and her team got it wrong on the value and importance of homebirth with a private midwife. The legislation must be amended, or discarded. The partnership of homebirth and private midwifery is not an insignificant item that can be swept under the mat in a bureaucratic tidy up of maternity care. We are real people, we care deeply about birth and the whole maternity episode within life's complex continuum, and we vote.
Monday, September 7, 2009
more than 2000 people protest
News from Canberra on ABC Radio
Thousands rally for homebirthing rights
"More than 2,000 people have gathered outside Parliament House in Canberra to call for greater homebirthing rights.
"Women, men and children from all over Australia braved a rainy Canberra day to support women's rights to give birth at home. ..."
I have seen lots of pictures from the rally on Facebook
Here's A mother's blog.
[pictures from the rally will be added as they become available. Thanks to Janie, Bev and Kate for the pics so far]
Friday, September 4, 2009
Families converge on Canberra
...
Some are setting out today or tomorrow or Sunday to travel in their cars.
Some are flying in on Monday morning.
They are going to the MOTHER OF ALL RALLIES, Monday 7th September 2009, at 11:30 am, outside Parliament House.
They are protesting, as forcefully and publicly as they are able.
HOMEBIRTH WITH A PRIVATE MIDWIFE MUST NOT BE MADE UNLAWFUL.
A few of the related events are:
Sunday 6th September, 2009, 6:00 –
Australian Private Midwives Association Dinner
Zeffirelli Pizza
15 Franklin St, Manuka
Monday 7th September, 2009, 10:45 -
Pre Rally Welcome
Aboriginal tent Embassy
Queen Victoria Terrance (In front of old Parliament House)
Monday 7th September, 2009, 11:30
RALLY
Outside Parliament House
Monday, 7th September 2009, After the rally
Lunch for Australian Private Midwives Association
Monday, 7th September, 2009 - 6:30 - 7.30
Birth Rites Documentary Screening
Parliament House Canberra, Theatrette
The following press release is from Materntiy Coalition
Women United To Save Homebirth at Mother of All Rallies in Canberra.
Maternity Coalition members from across Australia will join thousands of others as they unite in the call for every woman to have every choice in pregnancy and birth.
The Mother of All Rallies, on Monday 7 September is in response to the limited terms of professional indemnity insurance currently on the table for midwives in private practice, which will effectively ban homebirth with a registered midwife come July 2010.
Maternity Coalition has highlighted the inequity of insurance being unavailable to midwives since 2001. Now, an indemnity solution is urgently required before the National Registration legislation takes effect next year.
Maternity Coalition's Victorian President, mother and midwife Janie Nottingham, who led Maternity Coalition’s Drive for Maternity Reform to Parliament House in 2007, will return to Canberra for Monday’s rally. “Appropriately qualified registered midwives have the skill to safely provide maternity care. Lack of indemnity for these professionals has the potential to harm mothers and babies, as the only option left to women in many areas wanting to birth outside an institutionalised setting is freebirth,” she said.
Maternity Coalition Northern Territory spokesperson Kylie Sheffield, who will make her way from Darwin to participate in the event said, "Existing state-run homebirth services in the NT are inadequate. We need to have private practice midwifery re-instated to make this an accessible choice for women and families throughout the Territory."
Maternity Coalition Queensland's spokesperson Joanne Smethurst from Brisbane, travelling to Canberra with her husband and joined by her aunty and sister, said, "The Australian Government must solve the insurance dilemma to ensure women can access registered midwives for birth in the setting of their choice. The option of homebirth with a private practice midwife must be indemnified and funded. Queensland has no state-supported homebirth programs – we rely on our private practice midwives to provide this valuable care to Queensland's expectant mothers."
Sarah Kerr, National Secretary on the road to Canberra from Townsville with her four young sons said, “To solve this problem the Federal Government needs to broaden the definitions for indemnity to include homebirth and birth on country for our indigenous mothers and babies in addition to hospital birth.”
Maternity Coalition’s National President and Wollongong mother of four, Lisa Metcalfe said, “The Federal Government must not leave women and babies without care from a registered midwife if they choose to birth outside a hospital setting. Bureaucratic oversight should not dictate women's choice. Until this problem is resolved, we are concerned that the biggest changes to maternity care we’ve seen in a century – providing midwives with access to Medicare and the Pharmaceutical Benefits Scheme – will not be effective.”
For further information about the Mother of All Rallies see Homebirth Australia’s website
http://www.homebirthaustralia.org/mother-all-rallies
Media contacts:
Maternity Coalition National President Lisa Metcalfe, Phone: 02 4268 1675 or 0437 577 576
Lisa Metcalfe
NSW President
Some are setting out today or tomorrow or Sunday to travel in their cars.
Some are flying in on Monday morning.
They are going to the MOTHER OF ALL RALLIES, Monday 7th September 2009, at 11:30 am, outside Parliament House.
They are protesting, as forcefully and publicly as they are able.
HOMEBIRTH WITH A PRIVATE MIDWIFE MUST NOT BE MADE UNLAWFUL.
A few of the related events are:
Sunday 6th September, 2009, 6:00 –
Australian Private Midwives Association Dinner
Zeffirelli Pizza
15 Franklin St, Manuka
Monday 7th September, 2009, 10:45 -
Pre Rally Welcome
Aboriginal tent Embassy
Queen Victoria Terrance (In front of old Parliament House)
Monday 7th September, 2009, 11:30
RALLY
Outside Parliament House
Monday, 7th September 2009, After the rally
Lunch for Australian Private Midwives Association
Monday, 7th September, 2009 - 6:30 - 7.30
Birth Rites Documentary Screening
Parliament House Canberra, Theatrette
The following press release is from Materntiy Coalition
Women United To Save Homebirth at Mother of All Rallies in Canberra.
Maternity Coalition members from across Australia will join thousands of others as they unite in the call for every woman to have every choice in pregnancy and birth.
The Mother of All Rallies, on Monday 7 September is in response to the limited terms of professional indemnity insurance currently on the table for midwives in private practice, which will effectively ban homebirth with a registered midwife come July 2010.
Maternity Coalition has highlighted the inequity of insurance being unavailable to midwives since 2001. Now, an indemnity solution is urgently required before the National Registration legislation takes effect next year.
Maternity Coalition's Victorian President, mother and midwife Janie Nottingham, who led Maternity Coalition’s Drive for Maternity Reform to Parliament House in 2007, will return to Canberra for Monday’s rally. “Appropriately qualified registered midwives have the skill to safely provide maternity care. Lack of indemnity for these professionals has the potential to harm mothers and babies, as the only option left to women in many areas wanting to birth outside an institutionalised setting is freebirth,” she said.
Maternity Coalition Northern Territory spokesperson Kylie Sheffield, who will make her way from Darwin to participate in the event said, "Existing state-run homebirth services in the NT are inadequate. We need to have private practice midwifery re-instated to make this an accessible choice for women and families throughout the Territory."
Maternity Coalition Queensland's spokesperson Joanne Smethurst from Brisbane, travelling to Canberra with her husband and joined by her aunty and sister, said, "The Australian Government must solve the insurance dilemma to ensure women can access registered midwives for birth in the setting of their choice. The option of homebirth with a private practice midwife must be indemnified and funded. Queensland has no state-supported homebirth programs – we rely on our private practice midwives to provide this valuable care to Queensland's expectant mothers."
Sarah Kerr, National Secretary on the road to Canberra from Townsville with her four young sons said, “To solve this problem the Federal Government needs to broaden the definitions for indemnity to include homebirth and birth on country for our indigenous mothers and babies in addition to hospital birth.”
Maternity Coalition’s National President and Wollongong mother of four, Lisa Metcalfe said, “The Federal Government must not leave women and babies without care from a registered midwife if they choose to birth outside a hospital setting. Bureaucratic oversight should not dictate women's choice. Until this problem is resolved, we are concerned that the biggest changes to maternity care we’ve seen in a century – providing midwives with access to Medicare and the Pharmaceutical Benefits Scheme – will not be effective.”
For further information about the Mother of All Rallies see Homebirth Australia’s website
http://www.homebirthaustralia.org/mother-all-rallies
Media contacts:
Maternity Coalition National President Lisa Metcalfe, Phone: 02 4268 1675 or 0437 577 576
Lisa Metcalfe
NSW President
Wednesday, September 2, 2009
MidAtlantic Conference on Birth and Primal Health Research
GRAN CANARIA
One step towards Utopia.
As Thomas More already knew 500 years ago, Utopia is an island in the Atlantic.
Don’t miss the
MIDATLANTIC CONFERENCE ON BIRTH & PRIMAL HEALTH RESEARCH
Las Palmas, February 26-28, 2010
From the prestigious symphony Hall of the Canary Islands Conference Centre (1656 seats), you’ll see the Ocean. You’ll dream of the Rebirth of the Goddess of Love, the one who was born ‘from the foams of the waves’.
In order to prepare the future, this conference will first present an overview of recent spectacular scientific and technical advances that will influence the history of childbirth.
The participation of Michael Stark, as the father of the fast, simplified, and safe technique of caesarean, will symbolise technical advances. The participation of Kerstin Uvnas-Moberg, world expert on the behavioural effects of ocytocin, will symbolise scientific advances. The need for action will be underlined by the participations of Anthony Costello, Professor of International Health, Institute of Child Health, London, and of Mario Merialdi, coordinator for maternal and perinatal health at WHO.
Invited practitioners and selected utopists will have the last word.
Everybody can actively participate in the conference by presenting a poster, by attending three of the 27 workshops, and by attending one of the two forums.
Visit:
WWW.WOMBECOLOGY.COM
(English and Spanish editions)
The conference is open to all those interested in the future of Humanity
SPREAD THE WORD!
One step towards Utopia.
As Thomas More already knew 500 years ago, Utopia is an island in the Atlantic.
Don’t miss the
MIDATLANTIC CONFERENCE ON BIRTH & PRIMAL HEALTH RESEARCH
Las Palmas, February 26-28, 2010
From the prestigious symphony Hall of the Canary Islands Conference Centre (1656 seats), you’ll see the Ocean. You’ll dream of the Rebirth of the Goddess of Love, the one who was born ‘from the foams of the waves’.
In order to prepare the future, this conference will first present an overview of recent spectacular scientific and technical advances that will influence the history of childbirth.
The participation of Michael Stark, as the father of the fast, simplified, and safe technique of caesarean, will symbolise technical advances. The participation of Kerstin Uvnas-Moberg, world expert on the behavioural effects of ocytocin, will symbolise scientific advances. The need for action will be underlined by the participations of Anthony Costello, Professor of International Health, Institute of Child Health, London, and of Mario Merialdi, coordinator for maternal and perinatal health at WHO.
Invited practitioners and selected utopists will have the last word.
Everybody can actively participate in the conference by presenting a poster, by attending three of the 27 workshops, and by attending one of the two forums.
Visit:
WWW.WOMBECOLOGY.COM
(English and Spanish editions)
The conference is open to all those interested in the future of Humanity
SPREAD THE WORD!
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