Australian Private Midwives Association: midwifery in Australia

Friday, November 4, 2011

midwifery in Australia

The Annual Report 2010-2011 of the regulation agency AHPRA and the National Boards reporting on the National Registration and Accreditation Scheme has been released. The annual report marks the first ever release of comprehensive national data on health practitioner regulation, including state and territory information, and profession-specific data.

At the time of the Report there were 97 [Medicare-] eligible midwives, listed as coming from:

13 NSW
53 QLD
5 SA
4 Tas
16 Vic
6 WA

Here are a few selected quotes from the report and linked documents:

Midwifery was the most female-dominated of the regulated professions, with the largest group of midwives aged 40 to 44 years and practising in Victoria.

Important information for the nursing and midwifery professions in the report includes: –

On 30 June 2011, there were 332,185 nurses and midwives registered to practise in Australia, with nursing and midwifery representing 63% of the total group of registered health practitioners
Of these, 1,789 practitioners held midwifery registration only, 290,072 nursing registration only, and 40,324 held dual nursing and midwifery registration
New South Wales was nominated as the principal place of practice by the largest cohort of nursing and midwifery registrants
Of all nurses and midwives, the largest group was aged 50 to 54 years (51,998 or almost 18% of the profession)
83% (274,228) of the total number of registered and enrolled nurses and dual nursing midwifery registrants are female; and 99.67% (1,783) of midwives are female
There were 1,466 nursing and midwifery practitioners in Australia with an endorsement on registration: 624 nurse practitioners; 744 endorsed for scheduled medicines; one midwife practitioner and 97 eligible midwives
There were ... 2,483 students of midwifery registered from April 2011, ... 2.5% of registered students across all regulated professions
There were 8,139 notifications received about health practitioners in 2010-11, including 1,300 about nurses and midwives. This means between 0.1% and 0.3% of Australia’s 332,185 nursing and midwifery practitioners were subject to a notification relating to either health, performance and/or conduct of the nurse or midwife
The Board took immediate action in relation to 115 nursing and midwifery practitioners after receiving a notification about the practitioner’s health, performance and/or conduct. As a result, the Board took no further action in 24 cases, imposed conditions on the registration of 26 practitioners suspended the registration of 36 practitioners; noted four practitioners surrendered their registration and accepted undertakings from 26 practitioners
There were 254 mandatory notifications about nurses and midwives in 2010-11, representing just over 58% of all mandatory notifications received across the 10 professions

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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.