Queensland Nurses and Midwives Union campaigns for change to maternity wards

A push to change the dangerous workloads of Queensland’s midwives, many of whom are living scared they will end up causing the death of a mum or vulnerable newborn, is building momentum.

Queensland midwives are so overworked many are living scared that they will end up in the coroner’s court due to the death of a mum or vulnerable newborn.

And the push to ease their dangerous workloads has peaked with almost 100,000 people signing a petition to change the Federal Government policy of counting both mother and baby as one patient.

Many of Queensland’s midwives are overworked, leaving them struggling to find the time to complete must-do clinical tasks.

In one gruelling shift a midwife could be looking after six to eight mums but this blows out to 12 to 16 persons when babies are counted. Midwives barely have time to complete their must-do clinical tasks and babies are often left in the care of mothers, many of whom have had C-section surgery.

The change.org petition is a boon to the fight by the Queensland Nurses and Midwives Union who have been campaigning for change by the Federal and Queensland Government to count babies in midwifery workloads in post-natal wards.

QNMU reports that half of the state’s midwives believe they are too overworked to provide safe and quality care.

“We have had a breakthrough at state level with the Queensland Government committing to trialling minimum safe staffing levels at two as yet unnamed public maternity units. We have been told this will happen before June 2022,” Beth Mohle said.

New mum Erin Harvey, pictured with husband Chris and children Stella, one week old, and Ari, 4. Picture: Lachie Millard.

The union wants mothers and babies to be counted separately with one midwife looking after two mothers and two babies or three mothers and three babies in their shift.

Midwife Kelly Grace started the national petition and has written to Health Minister Greg Hunt several times calling for change The reaction to the petition has been explosive with change.org claiming it has been one of their top campaigns.

“Midwives are afraid that a tragedy will happen on their watch. They feel anxious and depressed when they finish their shift knowing that they wanted to do more. They feel deflated,” the interstate midwife said.

The petition organiser said she knows of cases of babies being dropped by mothers who are exhausted after labour or they have rolled over on their babies in bed.

The QNMU agrees there are such events but this is not the case in midwifery-led continuity models.

The QNMU has set in place patient ratios for nurses in Queensland hospitals and it has proven a big success.

New mum Erin Harvey paid $3300 to have a private midwife with her when baby Stella was born a week ago.

“I wanted to be sure of having continued care during and after the birth. I know that hospital midwives can be run off their feet,” she said.

A Queensland Health spokesperson said the government was “committed to exploring potential models of care for expanding the nurse to patient ratio in areas of high demand, including maternity units.

“This builds on the Queensland Government’s longstanding promise to bolster midwifery services, including funding for 100 midwives,”

“Queensland Health will continue to work with key stakeholders such as the Queensland Nurses and Midwives Union (QNMU) to provide the best midwifery services across the state for Queensland mothers and babies.”