NSW enquiry in hospitals

There is currently an Inquiry into NSW Acute Services Public Hospitals.  This applies to women and birthing and midwives because all public maternity services are funded out of acute care – appropriate? I think not but this isn’t my turn to say so but it could be yours!!!

I stronlgy encourane anyone with a few hours to go and present. The more women who tell Commissioner Garling just how much better our maternity services could be, the better they will be for our future!

<http://www.lawlink.nsw.gov.au/lawlink/Special_Projects/ll_splprojects.nsf/pages/acsi_publichearings/>

Future Hearings include

 Monday 14 April 2008               Wollongong Hospital                         9.30am – 3.00pm    
Tuesday 15 April 2008               Queanbeyan Hospital                        1.00pm – 5.30pm    
Wednesday 16 April 2008          Goulburn Hospital                              10.00am – 2.00pm    
Thursday 17 April 2008               Liverpool Hospital                            9.00am – 5.00pm    
Tuesday 22 April 2008                Wagga Base Hospital                        10.30am – 3.00pm    
Wednesday 23 April 2008           Albury Base Hospital                          9.00am – 2.00pm    
Thursday 24 April 2008              Concord Repat General Hospital        9.00am – 4.30pm    
Monday 28 April 2008                 Lismore Base Hospital                       12.00pm – 4.00pm    
Tuesday 29 April 2008                The Tweed Hospital                             10.30am – 5.00pm    
Thursday 1 May 2008                 Prince of Wales Hospital,
                                                     Randwick Children’s
                                                     Hospital for Women                              9.00am – 5.00pm    
Friday 2 May 2008                      St Vincent’s Hospital                             9.00am – 5.00pm    

You can present on the day - under oath and transcripted but don’t be afraid of that step of the process! Imagine if all the women across the entire state of NSW came together to say the same thing (one on one midwifery care for women, choice in place and style of birth, publicly funded homebirth - heck, even evidence based care!!).

If you look up the Tamworth transcript you can see that Justine Caines has already spoken and has been very direct (no surprise!!). She has backed it up with an 11 page written submission which I can forward to you for information.

Here’s the terms of reference

authorise you as Commissioner to inquire into and report to Our Governor of the said
State on the following matters concerning the delivery of acute care services in
public hospitals in New South Wales:

      1. any systemic or institutional issues in the delivery of acute care services in NSW public hospitals raised in submissions you receive that you consider appropriate for you to inquire into and recommend any changes which should be made to address them;

      2. identify existing models of patient care used in the delivery of acute care services in NSW public hospitals with particular regard to case management including supervision of junior clinical staff, clinical note-taking and record-keeping, and communication between health professionals involved in the care of a patient;

      3. recommend any changes which should be made to the existing models of patient care identified under paragraph 2 to improve the quality and safety of patient care in NSW public hospitals;

      4. identify any systemic impediments to the implementation of changes recommended under paragraph 3;

      5. recommend any changes which NSW Health should make to overcome any impediments identified under paragraph 4; and

      6. recommend any changes which NSW Health should make to ensure that its workforce policies and practices support improved models of patient care.

You may have regard to the developments arising from the National Health and Hospitals Reform Commission and other Commonwealth-State reforms in relation to Australian health care delivery, to the extent that they arise before the date for the delivery of your report.

You are to refer any individual patient complaints identified in the course of your inquiry to the Health Care Complaints Commission.

You may seek the advice of such eminent persons as you choose to engage who have expertise in any one or more of medical practice, nursing practice, allied health practice, hospital management and such other areas as you consider appropriate. __._,_.___

Posted: April 6, 2008 Tell it like it is (0)

More anti-D stuff

 

Who would have thought that one little post would trigger so many more? I recently wrote about anti-D research that was published and it’s snowballed!

I didn’t explain myself extensive and Lisa has rightly pulled me up to consider that I use the word "given" regarding routine anti-D injections, rather than "offered", which does support choice in that choice of words. This slip of the tongue/fingers is amusing to me in my hypocrisy as last week I pointed out to a lecturer that midwives should be offering Hepatitis B immunisation (well, I don’t agree with this at all but stay with me here) rather than just assuming that it will be administered.

I have a literature review to do soon for an assignment and I guess I know what topic I’m going to do it on. I read an article from With Woman on this topic and I have said a few times that I don’t understand enough about anti-D to have a firm point of view, but I have never been comfortable with the routine nature of it, and the lack of knowledge about side-effects for both mother and the current babe and future babes as well.

 

 

So in considering that I have been developing my scope of practice, it comes down to this: I firmly believe that no intervention needs to be routine, and that birth happens. There are lots of things in hospital-based midwifery practice that I don’t see the benefit of and it is so hard to embrace a lot of them when the evidence is lacking and that squicky feeling in my gut doesn’t help.

Posted: Tell it like it is (0)