Here here,
But it can come down to their money and
they don’t want to give up there power over the birthing rights.
From: owner-ozmidwifery@acegraphics.com.au [mailto:owner-ozmidwifery@acegraphics.com.au] On Behalf Of Mike & Lindsay Kennedy
Sent: Friday, 3 November 2006 8:21
AM
To: ozmidwifery@acegraphics.com.au
Subject: Re: [ozmidwifery]
Victorian Election and rural Obstetrics
Poor overworked
obstetricians we should give them a raise.
What the article doesn't say is that all the public ones have registrars and
junior doctors to do most of their work and that midwives provide more than 97%
of care for the women (including private patients) and most of the births.
Perhaps if obstetricians were only seeing the women who really needed to see
them (ie the truly high risk ones) and left midwives to get on with the other
95% there wouldn't be a shortage of obstetricians by rather a surplus. Of
course research shows time and time again that a midwifery model of care with
referral for high risk is the safest method for women and their babies and
allows women to have their babies without traveling. Gee I guess if they don't
have to travel to another city to have their babies there might not be roadside
deaths.
On 11/2/06, Justine
Caines <[EMAIL PROTECTED]>
wrote:
Dear All
The following story is the same old spin from the Obs. I plan to engage
the Herald_sun to see if we can get some real news and solutions into print.
Can all you Victorians on list write in with Midwives are the answer type
letters!
Go to the Herald Sun website
www.news.com.au/heraldsun
You will find a 'send a letter' choice under the opinion button on the sites
main page.
JC
DOCTORS say it is only a matter of time before mothers and babies die by the
roadside because of a critical lack of specialist obstetrics care in rural Victoria.
Only 37 specialist obstetricians and gynaecologists practise
outside Melbourne.
Obstetrics services have disappeared from 34 towns since 1997.
Wodonga senior obstetrician Pieter Mourik said the lack of maternity centres
and specialist obstetricians in rural Victoria
would inevitably lead to roadside deaths.
"It is not a case of if a woman and a baby is going to die, it is a case
of when. It will happen," he said.
Almost 16,000 babies were born in country Victoria last year -- an average of 342 for
each of the bush's overworked specialists.
In Melbourne there are 189 obstetricians and
gynaecologists -- an average of one for every 246 of the 46,500 babies born in Melbourne last year.
Mothers in the state's far east and northwest are hardest hit, with huge
distances between specialists, forcing some pregnant women to endure up to four
hours' travel to access care.
Their plight has been made worse by a shortage of rural-based anaesthetists,
which has left some mothers without access to epidural pain relief or an
emergency caesarean without a risky mid-birth ambulance transfer.
Horsham obstetrician and gynaecologist Dr David Morris said the shortage
of rural specialists was at crisis point.
He said the lives of women and their unborn children were put in danger by
trips of up to three hours to reach his practice.
"It can be perilous for some women (with difficult pregnancies)," he
said. "They have a choice
of staying in hospital for two or three weeks before delivery, at great
personal cost, or taking the risk the hospital will be too far away if they
need it."
The doctors warned the situation was about to worsen because many of the
remaining rural-based obstetricians are approaching or already past retirement
age.
Of the remaining specialists, 24 are 50 or older, with eight over 60.
Just three are under 30 and only two are women.
Rural Doctors Association president Dr Mike Moynahan said further closures of
country obstetric services seemed unavoidable, with about 80 per cent of the
167 rural GPs qualified to deliver babies also due for retirement in the next five
to 10 years.
Health Minister Bronwyn Pike said a national shortage of doctors was to blame
for the decline in rural obstetrics.
"It's not a funding issue," a spokesman said.
"There haven't been enough doctors trained in recent years and lack of doctors
leads to lack of obstetricians and anaesthetists coming through the
system."
Ms Pike said $4.4 million was being spent to recruit doctors from overseas and
$4 million to promote midwife-led services at rural hospitals.
Opposition health spokeswoman Helen Shardey said it was too little too late.
"Obstetric services have already closed down right across Victoria," she
said.
"If you're looking to provide more specialists throughout Victoria you don't wait
seven years, allow services to close and then announce you're going to spend $4
million bringing doctors from overseas."
--
My photos online @ http://community.webshots.com/user/mike1962nz
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New Photo site@
Mike - http://mikelinz.dotphoto.com
Lindsay - Http://likeminz.dotphoto.com
"Life is a sexually transmitted condition with 100% mortality and birth is
as safe as it gets." Unknown
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