Dear list
Surely you can't compare midwifery with nursing when it comes to ratios?
Why is the ANF telling midwives how to deliver care to pregnant women
and new mothers?
All women deserve their own midwife and the only way to achieve this
is to have all hospital employed midwives taking on their own
caseload ... that will be the way for the future. Unless midwives
adopt a caseload approach to their care and identify themselves as
true primary carers they will forever be forced into working as
maternity nurses and adopting nursing awards and conditions. Case
load under a primaray health moel could be achieved by midwives as a
collective undertaking industrial bargaining with their area health
authority.
There are enough skilled enrolled nurses and students to provide the
workforce able to care for those women unfortunate enough to be
admitted antenatally or incur a surgical birth / severe complication
needing post-partal hospital care. With the primary care midwife
visiting daily, debriefing and supervising each day's work the
staffing levels suggested would be more than adequate.
Nursing administrators are their own worst enemies ... they had the
opportunity to cross over to a primary health care model years ago
and never pursued it ... now they are making nurses almost extinct
becaue of the lack of satisfaction in new grads not being able to
follow their patients through.
The sociologic preditions made in the 1970's are now coming true ...
the nurses of the new millenium will be the enrolled nurses .... the
few remaining RNs will be doctors practice nurses or classy
technicians in a field of speciality.
I frequently watch them and talk to RNs working in general wards
about their stress levels. Most hate the system that they work under
.... never even in the same room for two consecutive days, never
being able to follow the patients through ... always being placed
where there is a job to be done or a task to be performed. They are
gradually losing their general nursing skills - just like the
midwives lost many of their skills by a fragmented 'specialised'
approach to care. RNs rarely get the chance to follow their patients
through from admission to discharge just as hospital midwives rarely
get to follow a woman through from her first antenatal visit to
discharge.
Fragmented care is very stressful and not satisfying work for anyone
... ask any midwife working in a post-natal ward as she flops into
her chair at home with exhaustion and fustration of not being able to
give the quality time her patients deserve.
That's my two bob's worth on this topic
Jan
>Dear Fran and list,
>I also wholeheartedly agree with the ACMI position on these staffing levels.
>This combined with the ANF's ceasing PIinsurance for Independent midwives,
>is making me rethink my 24 year membership of their organisation. It
>reflects the ANF's focus on midwifery as nursing. These staffing levels will
>not empower midwives to pracitice midwifery let alone provide effective
>nursing care. It will certainly not empower women in their journey to
>motherhood.
>
>
>Jenny Parratt
>Independent Midwife Consultant
>PO Mandurang Vic 3551 Australia
>0409 393073
>[EMAIL PROTECTED]
>----- Original Message -----
>From: Fran Sheean <[EMAIL PROTECTED]>
>To: <[EMAIL PROTECTED]>
>Sent: Tuesday, August 28, 2001 9:31 AM
>Subject: Clinician/client ratios in Victoria
>
>
>> The Australian College of Midwives Incorporated, Victorian Branch is
>> appalled at the agreed upon ratios for midwives negotiated by the
>> Australian Nurses Federation - Victorian Branch.
>>
>> The ANF believes that satisfactory care can be provided for women during
>> pregnancy and childbirth with the following ratios.
>>
>> Morning shift: 1 midwife to 5 antenatal or postnatal women
>> Afternoon shift: 1 midwife to 6 antenatal or postnatal women
>> Night shift: 1 midwife to 10 antenatal or postnatal women.
> >
>> Midwives will be expected to care for 1.5 labouring women.
>>
>> To agree that midwives can adequately care for 1.5 women in labour
>> undermines not only the profession but the very essence of women and
>> families. What is important to the ANF - obviously not midwives or women
>> and their families.
>>
>> It is well established that women have better outcomes, less intervention
>> rates and greater satisfaction when they receive one on one care during
>> labour. When caring for postnatal women midwives also provide care for
>> their babies - in effect the ANF supports midwives caring for 20 clients
>> (mothers and babies) overnight!
>>
>> Midwifery is facing a workforce crisis. Currently within this country it
>> takes at least 5 years to become a midwife - the longest education
>> timeframe for midwives in the world. The workforce is aging, we are not
>> recruiting nor are we retaining midwives to ensure a safe level of care
>for
>> women in this country. Ratios such as these will do little to relieve the
>> midwifery workforce crisis.
>>
>> The introduction of the above ratios by the ANF, without consultation of
>> the professional organisation (ACMI Vic Branch), makes a mockery of what
>> many midwives believed would be better working conditions and a subsequent
>> improvement in care for women.
>>
>> The ACMI Vic Branch demands the ANF Vic Branch continue negotiations on
> > behalf of midwives. ANF accepts membership fees from midwives but is
> > obviously not representing them on industrial issues - what members pay
> > their fees for.
>>
>> The ACMI Vic Branch urges midwives and mothers to contact the ANF voicing
>> their concern about the negotiated ratios.
>>
>> Contact ACMI Vic Branch on 9349 1110 or me on 5444 7546 to voice your
>> concerns.
>>
>>
>> Fran Sheean
>> President
>> ACMI Vic Branch.
>>
>>
>>
>>
>>
>> Fran Sheean
>> Lecturer in Midwifery and Nursing
>> School of Health and Environment
>> La Trobe University, Bendigo
>> PO Box 199
>> Bendigo 3552
>>
>> Phone +61 (0) 3 5444 7546
>> Fax +61 (0) 3 5444 7977
>> --
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>
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__________________________________________________________________________
Jan Robinson Phone/fax: 011+ 61+
2+ 9546 4350
Independent Midwife Practitioner e-mail:
<[EMAIL PROTECTED]>
8 Robin Crescent www:
midwiferyeducation.com.au
South Hurstville NSW 2221 National Coordinator, ASIM
__________________________________________________________________________
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