Australian Private Midwives Association: Collaboration for homebirth with a General Practitioner

Sunday, October 10, 2010

Collaboration for homebirth with a General Practitioner

A well known Melbourne GP, Peter Lucas, has attended homebirths with midwives for many years.

An excerpt from his website:

“For some 35 years Dr Peter Lucas and Wattle Park House has offered collaborative care with home birth families and the midwives they have chosen to assist them with their experiences.
"This will continue but assumes that the Wattle Park House medical practitioner attends the birth.
"Until midwives obtain full indemnity cover which includes the labour and delivery, collaboration at a distance is fraught with uncertainty in a medico-legal sense, and cannot be seriously entertained.”

Midwives are concerned that although this doctor is willing to enter what has been called a "collaborative" arrangement with a midwife, he (or his insurance company) are setting conditions on his collaboration and transferring the primary carer role from the midwife to himself. If midwives were to enter into agreements with Peter, they would no longer be the primary carer for their own clients. The arrangement negates the notion of continuity of care from the midwife who practises on her own authority, and renders useless the process of applying for Medicare/PBS eligibility for these women for their antenatal care, as the doctor will be providing that.

WHO ARE WE?

The Australian Private Midwives Association represents midwives in private practice. The association is focused on the safety of women, the ability of women to access quality midwifery care across Australia and the partnerships between women and midwives. APMA supports women’s choice in maternity options within a framework of quality and safety and believes in women being able to access midwives in all settings. APMA unites all midwives seeking to provide continuity of care for women.

APMA strives to provide midwives in private practice with information relevant to their practice and advocacy in the political process.

Enquiries:
Joy Johnston joy@aitex.com.au
Marie Heath NSW and National 0407 266004
Clare Lane (Vic) 0416 130219

APMA POSITION STATEMENT on PLANNED HOME BIRTHS WITH A MIDWIFE

1. We support home birth with a midwife in attendance for women who have uncomplicated labours. 2. We support and adopt the International Confederation of Midwives’ (ICM) Definition of the Midwife (2011), which is foundational to all midwifery practice, including homebirth. 3. We support the right of every woman to access a midwife as the primary maternity caregiver who works in partnership with the woman throughout the episode of care, who is able to be the responsible professional in attendance at the birth either at home or hospital, and who is able to make appropriate referral and transfer of care when required. 4. We support the right of a midwife to practise privately in a fee-for-service or funded relationship with the client, or to take up employment. 5. We support only those regulatory restrictions that are able to pass the ‘public interest’ test: “How does this promote health and wellbeing in the mother and baby?” 6. We support an expectation of equity, including equal pay for equal work throughout a midwife’s scope of practice. Midwives who provide primary maternity care are entitled to the same public funding, the same opportunity to charge a fee-for-service, the same access to hospital referral, and publicly supported indemnity insurance, as medical practitioners providing the same maternity services. 7. We support processes by which midwives are able to gain experience and mentoring in order to commence and demonstrate competence in homebirth practice. 8. We support seamless and reliable processes by which midwives are able to make hospital bookings for women planning homebirth, and arrange transfer to the hospital in a timely way when needed.