[ozmidwifery] Fw: Letter to the editor re "Midwives, no insurance..." article

[Tom, Tania and Sam Smallwood]

Here's the letter I had published in the letters to the Ed in today's Advertiser in Adelaide, and off the back of it had a conversation with a journo from the local Hills newspaper who wants to print a story and photo in the next few weeks about the midwifery insurance crisis (when does it stop being a crisis??)...       I refer to the article "Midwives, no insurance - and everyone's happy" in The Advertiser, Tuesday, July 15, 2003.  I can assure Barry Hailstone and all readers that many of us who fall in to the category of Midwife, and/or consumer of midwifery continuity of care, are indeed NOT happy.  I am a midwife, and mother of two children, both born with the assistance of an independent midwife.    I am not happy at potentially risking everything I have worked for, every time I agree to attend a woman who choses to birth at home.  I am not happy that these women, myself included, are actively discriminated against by not being eligible for any monetary reimbursement despite saving the public health system approximately $3000 each time they chose to have a midwife as their primary care provider for pregnancy and birth.    I am not happy that a government which has bailed out medical practitioners to the tune of $30 million this year alone to cover the increase in professional indemnity insurance,  cannot see fit to value and validate women's choices by assisting midwives in the same way.    I had two wonderful births, and have the absolute privilege of attending other women's births every other week, but it will only be when midwives achieve equality and respect, and when women's choices are placed as number one on the political agenda that I'll begin to be truly happy.   Tania Smallwood