Hi Josie What an opportunity you have described! I think your town is asking that you build a caseload midwifery program from the ground up. With 30 births a year, and 3 midwives, each could take an average of 1 booking per month as primary carer, and back up the other two. Noone will be particularly stressed. Midwives could do this as well as taking regular shifts at the hospital, if they want the extra work. The one who lives out of town could take any bookings from between her home and the town. Pay could be calculated as a proportion of an annualised salary, at the level of an advanced practitioner. Doctor involvement should be restricted to those who need medical attention, or those who choose medical supervision.
In 1998 there was a meeting in Castlemaine Vic on Rural Midwifery, hosted jointly by the Coordinating Unit for Rural Health Education in Victoria (CURHEV) and the College of Midwives Vic Branch. The Report of that meeting includes the following chapters: Midwife availability (Vanessa Owen) The Midwife of the Future (Fran Sheean) The new graduate (Jan Mitchell) Small communities (Carol Stainsby) Maintaining competence (Jill Dunbar) Midwives and GPs in rural communities (Jenny Parratt and John Togno) Rural women and rural midwives (Maree Markus) I am sure a photocopy of the report could be got from the ACMI Vic Branch office. Alternatively yours truly could lend a helping hand. Joy Johnston 25 Eley Rd Blackburn South Vic 3130 Tel: 03 9808 9614 Fax: 03 9808 3611 M: 04111 90448 www.aitex.com.au/joy.htm -----Original Message----- From: Josie Greaves [SMTP:[EMAIL PROTECTED]] Sent: Friday, January 11, 2002 2:53 PM To: [EMAIL PROTECTED] Subject: Rural and Remote Midwifery Hi everyone, I am a midwife writing from Ceduna SA. 12 months ago our obstetric service was suspended due to lack of qualified GP's. We now have the GP's with obstetrics and anaesthetics, but our biggest problem now is a limited number of midwives. We only have 4 midwives, which is soon to be reduced to 3 as I am heading off on maternity leave!!! Of these 3 only 2 are in town at the moment, one living 70k's out of town. Our hospital board and management are VERY keen to get the service up and running again asap. We have been given some money to investigate different models of care that might suit our unique situation. We have supportive medical staff as well. I was wondering if there is anyone out there that might have some ideas or suggestions or similar experiences that might help us towards finding a way to bring a midwifery service back to our community. We would be looking at about 30 deliveries a year, and probably to start with, only multis simply because their labours are generally shorter and we don't have the staff to 'hand over' to at the end of 12 hours. Any help would be welcome. I will look forward to hearing from someone soon!! Cheers, Josie Greaves -- This mailing list is sponsored by ACE Graphics. Visit <http://www.acegraphics.com.au> to subscribe or unsubscribe. -- This mailing list is sponsored by ACE Graphics. Visit <http://www.acegraphics.com.au> to subscribe or unsubscribe.
