Dear colleagues The decision to axe the Team Midwifery programme at John Hunter is firstly tragic and secondly demonstrates a blatant disregard for numerous State and National Maternity Service recommendations that encourage the provision of continuity of care models. Letters have been sent to the following people from the NSW Midwives Association expressing our concerns and asking for the matter to be reconsidered : Dr Katherine McGrath Chief Executive Officer Hunter Area Health Service Locked Bag 1 Hunter Region Mail Centre Ms Judith Meppem Chief Nursing Officer NSW Health Department Ms Anne Saxton Director of Nursing Obstetrics and Gynaecology John Hunter Hospital Manager Greater Newcastle Sector Hunter Area Health Service Mr Craig Knowles Minister for Health, NSW Ms Jillian Skinner Shadow Minister for Health NSW Please write letters and voice your concerns. We are sending out a press release from the NSW Midwives Association and I have pasted it below for you to view. Please get active. The time is right. Hannah Dahlen Press Release from the NSW Midwives Association Team Midwifery Programme axed at John Hunter Hospital All about dollars and not sense!!! The NSW Midwives Association is extremely concerned over the proposed abandoning of the Team Midwifery Programme at John Hunter Hospital. This programme was established in 1991 when the hospital first opened. It is comprised of a team of 5.6 midwives who care for around 280 women a year. The team provides continuous care for women and their families antenatally and during labour. Postnatal debriefing and support is also available up until six weeks after the birth. Thousands of women have experienced the satisfaction of knowing their midwife during the antenatal period and at their birth. This programme has been a forerunner for over thirty such continuity of care programmes established Nationally. John Hunter has gained both national and international recognition for this innovative service through the publication of research into the programme in the Australian Medical Journal, 1995. The research showed this care led to lower rates of intervention and greater satisfaction for women when compared to mainstream care. The establishment of the Team Midwifery Consumer Participation Group reinforces the commitment childbearing women have to this model of care. To abandon a programme that has met the needs of so many women so superbly would indeed be a retrograde step for childbearing women and their families in this country. Recommendations from: the Shearman Report 1989/90; the NHMRC Options for Effective Care in Childbirth, 1996; the NSW Maternity Advisory Committee, 1997; NHMRC Review of Services Offered by Midwives, 1998; and the NSW Framework for Maternity Services (DRAFT), 1999, urge implementation of more continuity of care programmes for women and facilitation of many different models and options of maternity care. All these reports have indicated that women are requesting flexible models of care, continuity of care, shorter antenatal clinic waiting times, and more consistent advice. The John Hunter Team Midwifery programme met these needs for years. The decision to abandon the Team Midwifery Programme at John Hunter is simply about dollars and not sense. The Obstetrics and Gynaecology Division has a budgetary shortfall and the 5.6 midwives that staff the Team Midwifery Programme are the sacrificial lambs. It is far easier to find and dispose of a complete model of care that would reduce the Division�s financial shortfall than to examine and control the many costly practices and procedures not based on evidence. Midwives will not allow their services to be sacrificed when so much evidence supports their care. It is childbearing women and their families that will be the ultimate losers in this game of money and politics -- This mailing list is sponsored by ACE Graphics. Visit <http://www.acegraphics.com.au> to subscribe or unsubscribe.
