August 06, 2002

Is the Union deliberately blocking midwives?

Just back from a meeting with the midwives at the Birth Centre at St George Hospital in Sydney. They are doing a wonderful job of offering woman-centred care and their service is always under pressure because of its popularity. At present they are working in small teams, but really want to move to case load practice to enable more flexible working hours and avoid being on-call for women they don't know.

The main sticking point is not the Hospital or its Managers - they are very keen for the work of these midwives to be expanded and consolidated. It is the Nursing Union that is getting in the way. To work as caseload midwives, each would work three months on and one month off throughout the year and the Union will not allow this to happen - they are insisting that midwives take their days off in a regular fashion each fortnight.

The Union's intransigence is holding up progress in promoting midwifery in this State. Instead of showing leadership through encouraging new ways of working (that have proven health and safety benefits for midwives, as well as improved retention rates in midwifery for their members) they insist on sticking to outmoded views and work practices.

It is a shame that midwives don't have their own Union (such as the Royal College of Midwives) that has the potential to represent midwifery more effectively. Perhaps it is time for Midwifery Managers to look at Enterprise Agreements (that can be registered as alternatives to Union Awards) to underpin the new models of midwifery care that are evolving. This would have an added benefit in that staff could be hired on contracts that include performance criteria and annual reviews. A neat solution for ridding our Maternity Units of those obstetric nurses who, having not updated or changed their practices for years, just get in everyone's way by perpetuating the medical model!

Now there's a radical thought!

Posted by andrea at August 06, 2002 12:22 PM

Comments

Andrea this is very true, there has to knowledge been some discussion re ACMI becoming our union but talk is that we just don't have the numbers to make it viable. I totally agree that in this case the union is holding things back, ANF has made is quite clear that they do not support midwifery as a separate profession to nursing, I also agree that the way forward is probably through enterprise agreements, the current system is broken and it is time to fix it. pete malavisi

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