International Day of the Midwife

The aim of the day is to cel­e­brate mid­wifery and to height­en aware­ness of the impor­tance of mid­wives’ work to as many peo­ple as possible.

“We are proud to count as mem­bers, the peo­ple of this proud and noble pro­fes­sion”, says CRANAplus Pres­i­dent, Christo­pher Cliffe. Mid­wifery is an essen­tial part of remote health care and is promi­nent among the issues that our organ­i­sa­tion is advo­cat­ing for. ​“We want all women to have access to a skilled mater­ni­ty care provider, regard­less of where they live and that safe options should be devel­oped for women who choose to have uncom­pli­cat­ed births where they reside, includ­ing remote areas.” says Mr Cliffe. CRANAplus is also advo­cat­ing for nurse prac­ti­tion­ers and eli­gi­ble mid­wives to have unin­hib­it­ed access to MBS and their clients to have access to PBS, ensur­ing that these roles are viable alter­na­tives for clients access­ing health care in Australia.

Many Aus­tralians get to make a choice about when where and who will assist in the deliv­ery of their chil­dren. Women in remote regions, many of which are Abo­rig­i­nal and/​or Tor­res Straight Islander, don’t have the lux­u­ry of choice. CRANAplus recog­nis­es the lim­it­ed ser­vices avail­able to many remote clients and strives to sup­port remote mid­wives pro­fes­sion­al­ly through con­tin­u­ing edu­ca­tion and access to the Bush Sup­port Line.

Five years ago, CRANAplus launched the Mater­ni­ty Emer­gency Care (MEC) train­ing course that teach­es nurs­es and oth­er prac­ti­tion­ers, who aren’t mid­wives, the basic mater­ni­ty care that is some­times required when work­ing in a remote or iso­lat­ed set­ting. This year an advanced course for mid­wives has been added to the line­up. Mid­wifery Up Skilling (MIDUS) pro­vides an overview of cur­rent prac­tice in ante­na­tal, intra­partum and post­na­tal care, with an empha­sis on care in the remote or iso­lat­ed setting.

These cours­es are hav­ing a pos­i­tive impact in remote com­mu­ni­ties accord­ing to MEC facil­i­ta­tor and expe­ri­enced mid­wife, Glen­da Glee­son, ​“I have noticed that after remote area nurs­es or Abo­rig­i­nal health work­ers attend a MEC course, women in their com­mu­ni­ty are more like­ly to utilise their ser­vices. The advanced train­ing increas­es the con­fi­dence of these prac­ti­tion­ers and improves the lev­el of care they can offer. After attend­ing a course they know they can con­tact me or any of the facil­i­ta­tors if they have any ques­tions or concerns.”

CRANAplus is ded­i­cat­ed to the devel­op­ment and deliv­ery of safe, high qual­i­ty pri­ma­ry health­care to remote and iso­lat­ed areas of Aus­tralia through the edu­ca­tion and sup­port of remote health prac­ti­tion­ers and advo­ca­cy for the issues affect­ing them and the peo­ple in their care.

Con­tact:

Car­ole Tay­lor CEO (08) 8959 1111