Thanks Mary. If I wanted to start private practice here in Alice I have to have ACMI accreditation to gain visiting priveleges to the hospital, it is one of the pre-requisites. Mind you another is to have indemnity insurance. At the moment I'm gaining experiance and will apply for the ACMI accreditation. I'm not too hopeful about getting accredited as all the births are in the hospital. (except the birth that happened in the car on the way to ASH, but that's another story). I'm working very hard and so far I have very positive feedback from the families. I have just had the 8th birth on the project. I am not able to take on any new clients and dread the thought of having to say no. Regards Rosemary
Dear Rosemary
So good to hear you are up to your 8th birth.
Your ACMI Accreditation should soon be to hand.
All of the ACMI Accredited IPMs who are still practising in NSW are currently uninsured but having no PI insurance has meant that we cannot maintain our official visiting and admitting rights to our local hospital.
ACMI accredited IPMs will get their Visiting Midwife status back when a PI insurance solution is forthcoming.
The College is working on this.
Unofficially IPMs still book women who desire a hospital birth into one of the local birth centres. The IPM provides all the prenatal care (with some additional visits to the Birth Centre midwives required) and goes to the Birth Centre with the woman when she is in labour. Postnatal care is provided at home.
The major difference now is that the midwife on duty has the final say in the care provided during the time in the birth centre. She is also responsible for entering birth data into the hospital register as well as entering the perinatal data into the computer. Our client’s births are no longer recorded with the IPM’s name as the accoucheur. It depends on how well the midwife on duty at the time knows you and trusts you as to how the care during birth is provided.
One major Sydney hospital is now working towards getting funding for homebirths so that the IPMs will be paid as contractors for each birth conducted on behalf of the local Area Health Service. If this proposal eventuates, the IPMs will have PI insurance from the same government source as the employed midwives whenever they provide birthing services on behalf of the Area Health Service.
In the meantime the uninsured IPMs continue to contract privately with women to provide homebirth services. If these women need medical attention then we simply transfer to hospital. No public hospital can turn away a pregnant women with a medical problem. The IPM accompanies her client as her advocate and fits into the birthing environment as a support person or friend of the family.
Most practising IPMs have also changed their Statement of Service document to include information to clients about their uninsured status. They also provide additional information on how women can make a complaint about the IPM’s professional services if they have concerns about the quality of care.
The NSW IPMs are also working closely with the Maternity Coalition to put pressure on our State Government to include funded homebirths as a legitimate choice for pregnant women. IPMs would be happy to contract with the Health Department to provide such services.
We are also lobbying for choice of continuous care from a midwife being included as an option within the state hospital services.
Good luck with your project in Alice .. I hope to see you presenting a paper on it at the ACMI Bienniel Conference in Darwin next year.
Regards
Jan Robinson
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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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