Senate Inquiry Midwifery Recommendations

The recommendations to come from The Senate Inquiry held last month have been published. You can read the full document in PDF here. The most relevant recommendation to homebirthers can be found on pages 18-19:

"1.77 The Committee notes that there is a separate exposure draft Bill for the National registration and Accreditation Scheme for Health Professionals which has been prepared for all jurisdictions via a COAG agreement. It is the outcome of this legislation that may result in homebirths being outside the scope of practice of registered midwives due to the requirement for indemnity insurance as a condition of registration. The Committee acknowledges the concerns expressed by stakeholders that an unintended consequence of this may be to drive homebirths underground unless an exemption is granted or an insurance product found.

1.78 The Committee acknowledges that the minister is currently working with the States and Territories on potential options to prevent this from happening. This will include investigating indemnity options for homebirths that could be progressed without making the insurance unaffordable.

Recommendation 1
1.79 The committee recommends that the Health Legislation Amendment (Midwives and Nurse Practitioners) Bill 2009, the Midwife Professional Indemnity (Commonwealth Contribution) Scheme Bill 2009 and the Midwife Professional Indemnity (Run-off Cover Support Payment) Bill 2009 be passed. " (emphasis original)

Aside from obviously being unhappy with the recommendation I am unimpressed with the Senate's claim that outlawing homebirth midwifery was "unintentional" in drafting this legislation. Political figures cannot pay attention to one lobby group (in this case the rich and powerful obstetric lobby group) while ignoring the thousands of letters from independent midwives and hombirth families and then pretend to be surprised that the homebirthers have been left out in the cold.

Further to this, it concerns me greatly that The Senate are satisfied that The Health Minister is working with state and territory governments to fix this so-called oversight. I don't know of any state or territory politicians who have been to a homebirth. But I do know that state run homebirth programs are ridiculously restrictive and leave most families with the hospital or freebirth ultimatum. Almost all variations of normal pregnancy and birth fall under the "high risk" category in these programs.

Homebirth midwife, Lisa Barrett beautifully summarised one of the biggest problems with all the political discussion about homebirth regulation on her blog:

"The main problem with the whole document is that it is focused on insurance for midwives (although the Greens to recommend a waiver until this is sorted out). It focuses on midwifery as an entity to be controlled or decided upon. The woman's right to chose was not the focus for any one of these senators. I think politicians have totally forgotten that they are supposed to be representing the public and not the AMA or RANZCOG."

There has been a rash of articles in national and local newspapers about homebirth, myself included has spoken to a journalist to raise awareness in my community. The following quote was my favourite in all the articles that have been published in the past week. It was said by Liz Wilkes, the president of the Australian Private Midwives Association, in an article in the The Sydney Morning Herald:

''It looks like the voices of more than 2000 women speaking out on fundamental women's rights has been ignored and given the sheer magnitude of the evidence put forward and the results the committee has come up with, it looks like we are getting to the end of the line when it comes to options.''"

The need to keep our voices loud and strong remains. See you in Canberra next month!