I am just home from the Rudd rally in Brisbane (ah the joys of living in rural NSW!).
I was so proud to be part of the birth reform movement today, so many wonderful women who came at short notice to yet again support homebirth and women’s rights.
“It will mean the death of home birthing if these amendments go through,” she said. “Midwives will be dependent on the approval of doctors for access to Medicare rebates… doctors will also have the right to veto a woman’s choice of care.”
Ms O’Driscoll said that the proposed amendment would result in more revenue for GPs.
Hundreds of WA women and children gathered outside Federal MP Stephen Smith’s Inglewood office this morning to protest changes to maternity services which they say will make home births illegal.
The women and children, many of whom were brought into the world through a home birth, joined other rallies across the nation outside the offices of Kevin Rudd, Julia Gillard and Tanya Plibersek.
MIDWIVES’ ability to work independently - promised by the federal Health Minister, Nicola Roxon - would depend on endorsement by individual doctors under an amendment to proposed legislation that has infuriated women’s groups.
Birth advocacy groups will rally today at sites across the country, including the Brisbane headquarters of the Prime Minister, Kevin Rudd, and in Sydney outside the Surry Hills office of the Minister for the Status of Women, Tanya Plibersek, to protest at the amendment, made public last week, which reveals that to work in private practice midwives will first have to ”enter a collaborative arrangement … with one or more medical practitioners”.
Ms Caines said the amendments, if passed, would mean doctors rather than prospective parents would be deciding whether or not births could happen at home and midwives would be denied Medicare payments for services if they could not prove collaborative arrangements.
“Doctors will have the ability to veto home births for whatever reason and as such threaten women’s rights,” she said.