Dear All Another uninformed program on Radio National Background Briefing today supposedly about increasing patient responsibility
Please if you heard it send them an email at http://www.abc.net.au/rn/backgroundbriefing/contact/ Here is mine and their phone number is on the same web address so you can phone them also Dear background Briefing I was so disappointed by your example of "innovative maternity services"! Research here and overseas has repeatedly shown that private maternity care is costly on all levels as it results in higher rates of intervention in child birth with subsequent higher rates of problems with breastfeeding and post-natal depression, compared to vaginal birth. Please explain how the hotel based post-natal "care" you presented is an example of increased self-responsibity on the part of women,as your title suggests? Again evidence shows this happens with continuity of a known carer, for example as in New Zealand with their national Lead Maternity Carer arrangements! Australian maternity services with about 250,000 birth per year and more than 30% of these ending in Caesarean section accounts for a huge proportion of the national health budget. Many consumer groups under the umbrella of Maternity Coalition (www.maternitycoalition.org.au) and the Australian College of Midwives (www.midwives.org.au) have been lobbying all governments to allow women access to primary midwifery options of care! Please if you really do want to consider patient responsibility in maternity care talk to the President of Maternity Coalition Justine Caines (02) 6545 3612. Thank you Denise Hynd Denise Hynd "Let us support one another, not just in philosophy but in action, for the sake of freedom for all women to choose exactly how and by whom, if by anyone, our bodies will be handled." - Linda Hes
