Maternity Care in NZ

The shocking state of maternity care provided to New Zealand mothers is beginning to be exposed at last.

The model of care where midwives, who enter directly into the profession, with no nursing background, are allowed to provide sole care to an expectant mother, without medical oversight, with no statutory requirements to report adverse outcomes, trained by a 'College' that is driven by an ideology that belongs in the middle-ages, has resulted in a doubling of the rate of birth-related maternal deaths. http://www.stuff.co.nz/4738834a11.html

This has been exposed in a letter sent to the members of the Royal Australian and New Zealand College of Obstetricians and Gynaecologists.

The letter raised concerns about a "quarantined maternal mortality report which reportedly shows a doubling in maternal mortality since the introduction of midwife-led care".

Associate Health Minister Steve Chadwick, who is responsible for maternity issues, said a committee had been formed in 2005 to investigate maternal deaths and the deaths of babies around the time of labour.

It is understood that the report into maternal deaths had been with Health Minister David Cunliffe for some time.

This raise a whole lot of issues.

At the time of the National Women's scandal, the Minister of Health was Helen Clark. It has long been the view of some doctors who worked there at the time that the scandal had been engineered with the use of dodgy statistics and using current knowledge to retrospectively judge a treatment modality for a disease that was misunderstood at the time. The statistician allegedly was a friend of Peter Davis. The aim was apparently to remove the powerful men who led Women's Care in New Zealand.

The College of Midwives has in its mission statement made it clear that they want to de-medicalise childbirth. This flies in the face of the modern approach to medicine where 'evidence based' treatment modalities are used. The rate of childbirth related deaths have plummeted in the last 100 years or so precisely because of modern medical involvement, research into pregnancy related illnesses and modern medical, not only obstetric, practice and the high standards of training.

This has been replaced by midwives trained in a College dominated by people of the same sexual orientation as the Associate Health Minister and our own Dear Leader, people who have an intense dislike for males, people who railed against 'paternalism' in medicine and who have now replaced it with their own type of 'paternalism' where women are being shamed into having to go along with their ideology; midwives who do not know what they don't know, and midwives that have been protected by a government from being exposed for what they are.

The result of this experiment in maternal care has resulted in an increased number of mothers dying, an increase in the number of children dying - but even worse is the number of both women and children who have been damaged for life, the number of women who are feacally incontenant, the number of women who will not have enjoyable sex again, the number of children who have cerbral palsey or are 'not all quite there'.

That is the bigger scandal.

Time for Hodgson to Act

Midwife suspended after two die

The midwife was suspended in December after a competency review because she was "a serious risk to the public", but could return to midwifery if she did competency training,...

In late 2005, Wellington coroner Garry Evans called for an independent maternity review and changes to midwifery training after the deaths of two breech babies delivered at home by midwives - a call Health Minister Pete Hodgson rejected.

http://stuff.co.nz/sundaystartimes/3981539a10.html

There are serious issues around midwife competency, the standard of training by the College of Midwifery and the scope of practice allowed to midwives. Further the payment structure for midwives is hard to believe as is their mantra against medicalisation of childbirth. These need to be addressed urgently.

However there is a lot of political suport for midwives - eg 1) the National Women's investigation (which used erroneous statistical methods to destroy the incumbant male doctors) occured under Helens Clark's Ministery of Health, 2) Hodgson's wife is apparently a midwife, and 3) there are numerous members of the dykeocracy who are in top positions in the midwifery covern.

The babies' deaths are just the tip of the iceberg as there is no audit required of bad outcomes for both mothers and babies. The number of badly damaged babies from prolonged labours where medical help is not sought and the number of mothers who are severly torn and may not have comfortable sex again or who are feacally incontenant as a result, is not known. This is where the scandal lies and this is why there is an urgent need for a full and proper review of maternity services in New Zealand.

The women of New Zealand are being done a great disservice.