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Professional indemnity insurance for midwives (again)

Finding time for writing Diary entries this week has been a challenge..... someone needs to invent a way of adding extra hours to those days when things are very hectic.

One item of news that has again been getting the attention of the media in Australia this week, is the issue of professional indemnity insurance for midwives. The Northern Territory Government has legislated that professional people must have indemnity insurance in order to practise. Many different groups are affected, such as builders, and it has caught up independent midwifery in its net. Quite suddenly, those midwives offering home births in the NT were unable to work, leaving about 12 women who had booked with them for home births, high and dry in the weeks leading up to Christmas.

This was not the intended outcome of the legislation, it seems. I was phoned by a staff person of one of the members of Parliament in the NT, and she explained that this situation had not been anticipated, and that steps were to be taken to relieve midwives of this pre-requisite for practice. Changing the legislation might not be easy now it has ben gazetted, and so other means would have to be found to support midwives offering home births. There are models from other States where the Government has extended their employee insurance to cover independent midwives (The Community Midwifery Program in Perth is the best example of this arrangement) and I suggested that this avenue be explored.

This problem may yet extend to other States. Women will have fewer options than they have now and independent midwives may find themselves out of a job. Efforts are being made a t a number of levels, targeting State and Federal Governments and also Area Health Services, to see if a solution can be found. It seems that the struggle for equality and equity for midwifery services for all women around the country is a never-ending fight, yet one that has to be continued. One day......

Posted by andrea at November 05, 2004 06:33 AM

Comments

Hi, Andrea. I accidently fell on your diary. I'm Jenny Fuller from Parents Centre days. It's good to see you are still fighting the good fight. Young mother's attitudes to birth and child rearing get me down these days after all the good work we did. I'm right out of the scene as my last baby delivered by myself (midwife got lost) at home is 19. Keep up the fight for sanity in childbirth!
Jenny

Posted by: Jenny Adolphe on November 10, 2004 07:04 AM

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