Dear Carol, apologies for causing offence, at that stage I wasn't aware his electorate contained Warragul, (have only voted in one federal election in Vic and didn't quite take in all the boundaries) but we did have a discussion about it and your initiatives and fabulous figures. I pointed him also to Wonthaggi as an exception and the fact that they have halved their CS rates to be around the 7-10% in one year. I also told him the bigger the hospital the more likely there was to have intervention, but not necessarily because of the increase in risk.
He was very interested and is planning on fact finding around this issue in his district. Your unit will be an example, and I expect he will make a visit. The next step is to get him interested in federal incentives to have your initiatives duplicated across his region. I also pointed him to WA and publicly funded homebirths with midwife entry to hospitals (way outside his electorate and a fantastic example of collaborative care, I reckon) and their great figures, NZ and Holland. Trish Carol Van Lochem <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> wrote:Trish, > It is fabulous that you have been lobbying our local member, but I feel that it is > important that you give him the correct information lest you lose credibility. > I work at West Gippsland Hospital in Warragul, which is in Christian Zara's > electorate and would like to point out the following: > > "rural birthing using midwife and collaborative models of care (he was really stung > when I told him the best example of this was NOT in his electorate" > I am a member of a team of 5 midwives who provide collaborative and case load > care to women in this hospital. We recieved State funding for this back in May and > are in the early stages, providing collaborative care to women having VBAC, history > of difficult births, young mums and Koori women. We are being provided with > additional upskilling in the meantime, and will then commence our caseload stream > when competent in areas of cannulation, suturing etc. This is the model of care the > State Gov. wishes to implement across Vic. > I have also been the KYM midwife for the past 2 years on the VBAC program, providing > 1-2-1 care throught the pregnancy continuum for these women. > > "When I told him that every hospital in his electorate had double the HWO > recommended rate for LUSCS and instruments and were off the scale for other > interventions, he seemed knocked out." > West Gippsland Hosital figures for 2002 were as follows: > NVB 63% > vacuum extraction 10% > forceps 8% > Emergency C/S 11% > Elective C/S 7% > Intact perineum 66% > Perineal tears 29% > Episiotomy 3.7% > Episiotomy + tear 0.6% > VBAC attempts 80% > VBAC acheived 60% > I think these figures speak for themselves. Some of them are State Benchmarks. Any > wonder the poor man "seemed knocked out" > Yours in midwifery > Carol Van Lochem > > -- Trish David FACM Senior Lecturer Midwifery and Nursing Monash University School of Nursing Gippsland Campus Northways Road Churchill 3842 (03) 5122 6839 0418 994033 -- This mailing list is sponsored by ACE Graphics. Visit <http://www.acegraphics.com.au> to subscribe or unsubscribe.
