NEWS RELEASE Tuesday April 14 2005
Contact: Justine Caines 0408 210 273

Medicare Safety net blow-out can be stemmed

Recent media reports have revealed that much of the Medicare safety-net blow out is due to a huge increase in claims by private obstetricians. Private Obstetricians only provide care to around one third of Australian women, around 80,000 of the 250,000 births each year.

"Australian taxpayers are funding an elite service operating nearly exclusively in metropolitan and large regional centres, while many rural women suffer without a safe local service ." said Justine Caines, National President of Maternity Coalition.

"Surprisingly there is a solution that could see a reduction in maternity spending whilst enhancing access to services" said Ms Caines.

"Midwives are the legitimate carers for women with normal pregnancies, they are trained and registered to do this work and yet an uncompetitive system prevents this." said Ms Caines

Health Minister Abbott needs to stem this waste of money that does not provide appropriate clinical care. Specialist Obstetricians are skilled in complicated pregnancies and must be reserved for this.

"There is no other area of medicine that enables a specialist to care for someone without a medical condition that poses a risk to their health." said Ms Caines

"Whilst our public hospitals continue to suffer from lack of resources, an elective healthcare system is being funded by the Australian taxpayer." Said Ms Caines

If this system was delivering appropriate outcomes equitably and demonstrated an appropriate use of scarce health resources it may be worth the money, but it's not" said Ms Caines.

Maternity Coalition calls on Minister Abbott to enable midwives to claim Medicare rebates to establish more appropriate and cost effective care and to assist providing rural women with a safe local service." Said Ms Caines.

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