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Oh Carol....
That's so dissapointing to read!!! Personally, I'd love to work in your hospital and with your model of care but currently I commute from Maffra to LRH and find that distance plenty enough!
It really is a worry like you say, that so much work has been done to lobby for this change, then to find that midwives are unable for whatever reasons..... to commit or at least consider all the benefits of caseload models and continuity of care! I am sure it is fear of the unknown and fear that 'we'll have no life'!
Coming from NZ, I know how rewarding this model of care is!!! Enough rambling! Hoping you find some interest soon!
Kiwi Kim
-------Original Message-------
Date: 21/06/2005 1:26:32 p.m.
Subject: RE: [ozmidwifery] Problems With new Models
Dear Carol,
Congratulations on your and your colleagues achievement in offering
continuity of care to women in Warragul.
I am sorry to hear you're having trouble recruiting a replacement for your
colleague. The College has a free section on our website for advertising
vacant positions, and we also have an e-bulletin list that goes to more than
1,000 subscribers. I would be happy to advertise your position on both of
these if you are still interested.
I also wonder if you've considered contacting the universities in Victoria
and elsewhere that are offering BMId programs. They may well be able to
promote your service to recent graduates. There will also be new graduates
emerging from the second intake of BMid students in only another 5 months -
I'm sure you would be likely to attract some interest from one or more of
such graduates (or students, if you have a capacity to wait).
The College is also looking at ways at present that we can help to inform
midwives about the benefits of working in the type of model you are
providing. There seem to be a lot of fairly negative myths around about the
realities of working this way which we are confident of being able to
balance out with good information from midwives working this way already.
The National Executive meeting in July will be considering some proposals in
this area and I'll let you know after that. They won't provide an immediate
solution to your problem, but they will at least help to address the bigger
picture problem of encouraging and supporting more midwives to give caseload
care a try, as you and your colleagues are doing.
Kind regards and best wishes for your service,
Barb.
Dr Barbara Vernon
Executive Officer
Australian College of Midwives
Ph +61 2 6230 7333
Mob 0438 855 529
'Midwifery: Pathways to Healthy Nations'
27th Congress of the International Confederation of Midwives
Brisbane Convention Centre, 24-28 July 2005
Date: 12 June 2005 5:39:20 PM
Subject: [ozmidwifery] Problems With new Models
Hi all, I have posted here from time to time, but mostly I'm a lurker.
I work in a team midwifery model at Warragul, where we have lots of
midwives who believe in continuity of care, support the women as central to
the whole prossess and have a supportive obstetrician to back us up. Our
problem is in recruiting midwives to work in our model. Nobody wants to do
"all that on call".They "want to have a life". After all these years of
fighting for this type of thing it seems there are not enough of us around
to fill this role. Many support the model in principal, but don't see how
they can fit it into their own lives.
Our team started just 12 months ago. It is a modified case load, with 1
night per week on call, and 1 weekend a month. We are "available" for our
"own" women during the day. We provide midwife led care for up to 60 low
risk women per year, and shared care for up to a further 60 "high risk"
women who benefit most from having a known midwife with them in labour. We
are meant to be 5, but have recently lost one, who would have rather worked
as a team only, with no case load.
To my knowledge there have been no applications for this position from with
in existing staff, nor has there been a response to newspaper ads. It
saddens me to think that this type of model will not be sustainable in the
long term. Here we are in the position of having active finacial support
from DHS after many years of lobbying for it, only to risk losing it all
through lack of willing staff. This problem must be coming up for others in
Victoria as caseload models are put forward in other regions.
Any thoughts, suggestions, simmilar experiences? I am truely at my wits
end. Sigh :(
Thanks for listening
Carol
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