January 05, 2003

The Mackay Birth Centre

I have had an email from Suzanne McLauchlan, an old friend of mine in Mackay, Queensland. She has been actively campaigning for better births for women for many years and has led several spirited campaigns to firstly establish, and then maintain the Mackay Birth Centre. When this was first established, it was in the former Matron’s home at the hospital, a three bedroom cottage in the grounds. It was perfect and very popular. There have been several attempts, over the years, to either incorporate the service into the Labour Ward or to demolish the program (and the building) altogether. However, the women of Mackay will have none of it and they have become very skilled at coordinating appropriate campaigns that have saved the day. She has now written to me again:

"In late November and early December just when we (midwives and mothers on the Reference Group for the MBC) believed we really did not need to meet monthly the administrators started indicating that they were considering relocating the birth centre form the free standing building into the Women's Health Unit of the Mackay Base Hospital. Our mighty lobbying machine in conjunction with lobbyist for NMAP quickly moved into action alerting the community and the admin staff that we would never tolerate such a move. All is well at the moment. We find the bureaucratic behaviour interesting and cyclic. Six years ago at the same time of the year when everyone is preparing to wind down from work and preparing for Christmas there was talk of demolishing our first birth centre. We now have more empowered men and women. However as you and I both know there is still so much work to be done to decrease the intervention rates and return birthing to women minus all the myths and fears that are perpetuated daily if not hourly".

Vigilance is imperative to make sure we retain those services we now have whilst we campaign for more choice. These birth centre programs are just too successful and popular and perhaps this is why they are often put at risk: if everyone wanted such good care then maternity services as a whole would need a radical overhaul. Rather than aiming high, it is often easier to dismantle the best services, so that they don’t show up the mediocre alternatives. Fortunately, women and midwives are forming better alliances today than they ever have in the past, and with the immediacy and convenience of email to coordinate campaigns and keep everyone informed, swift counter campaigns can be mounted with ease.

I just love the power of the internet to cross borders, promote communication and spread important information. We can use this wonderful tool to very good advantage when we feel our rights are being threatened.

Posted by andrea at January 05, 2003 12:06 PM

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