NEWS RELEASE - Thursday 9 October 2003

LISTEN TO CONSUMERS: HOW WE CAN SOLVE THE OBSTETRIC CRISIS AND SAVE $61 MIL PER YEAR

NSW has been hardest hit by the lack of Obstetricians. Many women in rural NSW travel hundreds of kilometres to maternity care. Current discussions between the Federal Government and the AMA will not return services to regional and rural Australia. "The AMA says it's all about patients so they need to start hearing from them. As a mum of 3, pregnant with number 4 living in rural NSW I know first hand. Our service was cut 10 years ago. Midwives can not only return services they can assist the Obstetric/GP shortfall" said Justine Caines, Acting National President of the Maternity Coalition.

For the past year we have heard of the crisis with medical indemnity, particularly in Obstetrics, without any focus on a workable solution. "As a national consumer group we have a solution that will provide women with high quality care with access to medical care as required and reduce the workloads of GP's and Specialist Obstetricians." said Ms Caines

Obstetricians are saying that they are on-call too much and this is a major reason why new graduates are not entering the workforce. "Obstetrics is in the fortunate position of having a midwifery workforce that is able to care for the majority of women with normal pregnancies while the obstetricians concentrate on women with medical complications, which is after all what they were trained to do" said Ms Caines

" It is critical that obstetricians recognise the legitimacy of midwives to provide their expertise to healthy women. Midwives are experts in normal birth and should be the primary carers in pregnancy". Said Ms Caines Currently, maternity care is a 'closed shop' and even though midwives are trained and registered to care for healthy women for their entire pregnancy, they very rarely do. "The medical profession has strongly resisted any competition within maternity services. This is like a paediatrician demanding they care for children in day care centres, enough is enough! Australian women demand a collaborative approach to maternity care and a strong emphasis on utilising the specialists only when needed. In this way we will be able to reduce litigation, and the hours our specialists are currently working" said Ms Caines.

"This solution is based on research evidence and is working successfully in New Zealand, where 80% of women choose the care of a midwife. In New Zealand the maternity services budget has been in decline and money was re-directed back to areas of critical need last year. Said Ms Caines.

In a preliminary exercise on potential savings that could be made in Australia, Maternity Coalition found savings of $61 million if only 2 measures of over servicing were reduced to bring Australia in line with best practice care." Said Ms Caines (see attached)

Contact: Justine Caines 0408210273

EXAMPLES OF POTENTIAL COST SAVINGS

Annual Australian births: 250,000

This does not include any antenatal, postnatal, readmission to hospital or neonatal intensive care services.

P.O. Box 1190
Blackburn North,
Victoria 3130
Australia