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Review of midwife rules urged after study

Author
Gia Garrick,
Publish Date
Thu, 22 Oct 2015, 5:42AM
(Getty Images)

Review of midwife rules urged after study

Author
Gia Garrick,
Publish Date
Thu, 22 Oct 2015, 5:42AM

A maternity support group has been pushing for a review of midwifery training and supervision for new graduates for years.

Otago researchers are calling for such a review after analysing four years of Ministry of Health data, finding some 1500 women will have a lead maternity caregiver this year with less than a year's experience.

They also found babies are 30 percent more likely to die under supervision of a new-grad midwife, than a midwife with five-to-nine years experience.

Action to Improve Maternity spokesperson Jenn Hooper said the government continually ignores the need for better training.

LISTEN TO JENN HOOPER'S INTERVIEW WITH MIKE HOSKING ABOVE

"This coming Tuesday AIM's next petition will be tabled to the House of Representatives and this one completely focuses on new grads," Hooper said.

Action to Improve Maternity has heard from hundreds of families who have experienced preventable harm from sub-standard care.

"We number more that 650 families that AIM has helped and there's lessons to be learnt for all of them and yes, there's been patterns that we've seen and one of those patterns is the new grade-midwives."

College of Midwives chief executive Karen Guilliland isn't happy with the new research, and claimed yesterday author Dr Lawton's statistics are all based on assumptions and shouldn't be taken seriously.

"When you get a piece of research that is really poorly done, and its analysis is incorrect, it's very disappointing that it gets published in a way that points the finger in the wrong direction."

"There's no point in giving it any credibility because its methodology was so poorly put together that everything it comes up with wrong," Guilliland said.

Associate professor Dr Beverley Lawton, who led the study, said it did not criticise the ability of midwives.

 

 

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