Friday, August 10, 2012

Communique from Health Ministers


Standing Council on Health
COMMUNIQUÉ
10 August 2012

Australian Health Ministers met in Sydney today for a meeting of the Standing Council on Health (SCoH).  The meeting was chaired by Dr Kim Hames, WA Minister for Health.

Professional Indemnity Insurance for Privately Practising Midwives.

Ministers agreed to an extension of the professional indemnity insurance exemption for privately practising midwives until June 2015.  This will mean that privately practising midwives will continue to be covered by the national registration and accreditation arrangements.

The Commonwealth agreed to vary the determination on collaborative arrangements to enable agreements between midwives and hospital and health services.

Ministers agreed that WA would develop a paper on longer term arrangements and that this would be presented at the November meeting of Ministers.

Media contact: Peta Rule, 0428 923 661 (Dr Kim Hames Office)

[This message has been copied from the SCoH Communique.] 


 

1 comment:

Joy Johnston said...

It's good that the exemption has been extended until 2015.
However...
I'm not sure that anything will change as far as collaboration is concerned. The communique indicates that the collaboration determination will be changed to "enable agreements between midwives and hospital and health services" as an alternative to the current system.
There are a few hospitals in Qld where progress is being made, but it seems that hospitals in the rest of the country can't work out how to allow a midwife to attend a woman privately (rather than as an employee of the hospital).
The AMA is outraged at the announcement. http://ama.com.au/node/8127