Shaye Candish, general secretary for the NSW Nurse and Midwives Association, told a snap protest outside Royal Prince Alfred Hospital on July 1 that the union would not allow midwives’ jobs to be cut.
“We’ve listened to all the recommendations out of the birth trauma inquiry. We talk to mothers every day and we know midwives are on the edge. We know what it’s like to work in services every day, turning up not knowing whether they will have enough people to deliver safe care.
“More cuts will only make this worse.”
The rally was told that the cuts to birthing wards mean that more than 18 full-time equivalent positions will be removed from the roster. It means the delivery ward will not have enough staffing to provide one nurse for one woman in labour, and for her post-partum care.
A midwife said one of the worst parts of this staff cut is changes to midwifery group practice, the gold standard of hospital-based maternity care. Despite a waiting list in the hundreds, the staffing allocated to this service is getting cut in half.
“Midwives at RPA are devastated … not only for their own wellbeing (the midwifery workforce is already on the verge of complete burnout) but mostly we are devastated for this community of women that deserve so much more than this.”
More than 400 submissions were sent to the Select Committee on Birth Trauma, which reported in May last year. It found that many people had suffered from “preventable birth trauma” and said the health system was failing to address avoidable risk factors.
More midwives, not less, would help prevent this, the rally speakers stressed.
Greens Newtown MP Jenny Leong said she backs the midwives, because “you know what is right and what is needed to care, not the bureaucrats, the minister, or the people deciding the budget bottom line”.
She said nurses and midwives are “in desperate need of a pay rise” and while the state Labor government awarded NSW Police a 40% pay rise, “the nurses got nothing”.
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