Lobby group criticises cut in midwife service

Press, 7 October 1988, Page 5

Lobby group criticises cut in midwife service

By

DAVID CLARKSON

Home-midwifery services have been cut to six days a week by the Nurse Maude District Nursing Association which move the lobby group, Maternity Action Alliance, says will widen a gap in support for new mothers. The Sunday service by the association’s domiciliary midwives has been dropped as a cost-saving measure. The association’s budget has not been cut, but inflation has forced it to face tighter funding. “I regret that we have to change to a six-day service, but we have to deliver the service within the funding constraints we have got, the best way we can, to meet the present demands,” said the association’s director of services, Mrs Anthea Bowden.

The association employs the equivalent of 2.6 fulltime midwives to make home visits to new mothers. Mrs Bowden said these staff had been

working overtime consistently to meet demands. Cutting out Sunday visits would enable the association to put more staff on during the week to cope with the workload, she said. Midwives visited mothers and babies until 10 days after their discharge from hospital. The midwives assessed how many visits should take place within that period. Ten days from discharge, mothers would receive their first visit from a Plunket nurse.

A spokeswoman for the Maternity Action Alliance, Ms Helen Chambers, said many women returned home at week-ends after having their babies.

“The alliance recognises the risks to which mothers and babies are exposed, especially those being discharged by hospitals earlier and earlier, often with no extended family support,” she said.

The alliance called on the association to reevaluate its priorities.

The delay before the Plunket services began visits left a big gap in support to mothers “at this vital and scary time,” Ms Chambers said.

Mrs Bowden disagreed, saying week-ends were a time when mothers were more likely to have support from their families and it was often during the week that support was lacking.

Ms Chambers said Christchurch had recorded 289 births in September, a very high total that was putting pressure on facilities at Christchurch Women’s Hospital. She said this led to pressure being put on women at the hospital to go home early or to move to Burwood Hospital or to hospitals in their own outlying districts.

A working party was studying submissions on local obstetric and gynaecological services, Ms Chambers said. One of the themes raised by people making submissions was the need for continuity in

the health staff women dealt with during thei •rpregnancy, delivery and afterwards. The medical superintendent of Christchurch Women’s Hospital, Mr Hamish McCrostie, said the average bed stay for women at the hospital had been 5.5 days during the last year. By international standards that was “not too bad.” he said. “I think women in New Zealand, and specifically in Canterbury, are not having a bad deal,” he said. When the hospital was under pressure, with no beds available for women in the labour ward, medical staff would approach patients who had had their babies to see if they could be transferred to other hospitals or return home early. This was always done humanely, and the criticism by the alliance was unjustified, he said.