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Building new maternity units

The midwives in Geraldton are planning how they want their new maternity unit to be equipped. The whole hospital here is to be rebuilt in the next few years, and efforts are being made to get the facilities right in the labour ward.

The starting point is not wonderful - they are having their bed numbers reduced from 12 to 8, even though their numbers of births are steady and may even rise, if more women start choosing public care over expensive private hospital cover. However, they have been promised a bath (hopefully one for each labour room) which will be a big improvement. During the workshop, we talked about the little things that make a big difference, such as dimmer switches for the lighting in the toilet and bathroom areas. Locating the drain for the shower in the corner rather than the centre of the floor is also important to avoid flooding if sitting on a birth ball will cover the floor drain.

The midwives had hoped they could have a birth centre rather than the standard hospital set up, and they are still considering how they might achieve this. I suggested using the community to apply pressure in the appropriate places - this has been done successfully a other towns and cities. Since they know all the women who have given birth in their hospital, it shouldn’t be difficult to locate some community leaders and women with useful skills who could throw their weight behind such a project, to form a core team who can push for the necessary reforms.

It has been a great weekend in Geraldton, and now I am in Perth, ready for another group that will no doubt be more diverse, but just as interesting.

Posted by andrea at September 22, 2003 11:13 AM

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