Mary
I feel that your post is somehow articulating some of the confusion I am
feeling. If the organisation that we are all paying our yearly fees to is
not representing us at a National level it is no wonder that we are all
feeling so alone and struggling. Perhaps you are right in suggesting a
Canberra based ACMI and as someone else suggested that also takes on an
industrial arm and we all pay a bit more for an organisation with a fist.
We all as midwives have so much committment to our care and the women we
work with, we need to improve our position for ourselves firstly. If we
can't be effective advocates for ourselves then how are we going to be
effective in changing the quality of services offered to women.
Maxine
>Dear Trish,
> I have just arrived home and am catching up with the hundreds of emails.
>In regard to the topic, I feel very frustrated that the ACMI is blocked so
>solidly. I know that it isn't each individual midwife, In Tassie I saw so
>many examples of what midwives are trying to do in their own little
>corners. Courageous midwives in hospital employment. It is all so
>disconnected. They feel so alone and ununited with any other midwives and
>their struggle.
> Maybe it has to do with the fact that we do not appear to have a REAL
>National strategy. I was shocked to hear from our administrative officer
>that she did not put in a submission to the Senate Inquiry because "all the
>issues seemed to be covered by the submissions from the individual State
>branches"
>I believe that the branch's individual efforts could have been supported by
>an overall National Statement. Even one page would do. The opportunity
>seems lost.
>I strongly support the idea of moving to Canberra and being seen to network
>where it matters most. I thought that W.A. was insular, but our head office
>seems immune to what is going on around it.
>By the time that a news item about Birthing women is broadcast our
>oganisation should have a reply ready to go out to the media. the next day
>is too late. Thats what seems to be the story of our organisation. We are
>one step behind everyone else.
>
>Best wishes, Mary Murphy.
>---- Original Message -----
>From: Trish David <[EMAIL PROTECTED]>
>To: <[EMAIL PROTECTED]>
>Sent: Monday, September 13, 1999 9:34 AM
>Subject: nigel and ineffectual ACMI
>
>
>> Dear Nigel,
>>
>> If you look at ACMI position statements, press releases, letters to
>> politicians, etc, in fact any correspondence (action) it has engaged in at
>> State and National level you will see that it does promote recognition of
>> midwifery as distinct from nursing and distinct from medicine. As to
>> ineffectual, prove it. Just because certain changes have not occurred,
>> doesnt mean something is ineffectual. It just means the resistance is too
>> strong. If all midwives were active members of ACMI, and if ALL WOMEN
>> really did feel passionate and want what we say they want, and were
>willing
>> and able to act, there would be no resistance at all.
>>
>> Now, are you a member of ACMI? Are you active at a local level? If not,
>> become so. If you feel passionately, let your local rep/branch know and
>be
>> prepared to act with them. A non-member cannot move anything.
>>
>> Now, as to having things in common...many issues we share with women have
>> no relevance to nursing, but eschewing an alliance that has been
>> productive, and that many, many midwives still cherish, even though it is
>> not without its disadvantages would be foolhardy. Why cut our noses off
>to
>> spite our faces??? (And see Nicky Leap's paper from the recent ACMI
>> Conference for a rational and lively critique of the definition of a
>> midwife in relation to nursing, so that rhetoric and rubric can be
>> idnetified where it exists.) I say, make strategic alliances, whilst
>> maintaining an identity, where and when they serve our best interests as a
>> woman centred profession. After all most nurses (96%) are women and will
>> need our services at some time.
>>
>> That doesn't mean we are to be nurses, just as electricians are not
>> plumbers. But the electricians and plumbers will band together for the
>> benefit of both trades. Interestingly, you have chosen for your metaphor
>> the two trades within the building area that have achieved a high degree
>of
>> occupational closure (separate identity enshrined in law)!!! And yet this
>> is precisely what many criticise midwifery (through ACMI) of trying to
>> perpetuate.
>>
>> That's all for now.
>>
>> Trish
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>
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Maxine Wilson
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