This profession has sucked the life out of my colleagues and me. Despite this, there is very little acknowledgement, respect or financial recompense from the NSW or Federal governments to justify forgoing family time, weekends, days of no sleep whilst working nights, and the health implications of injuries to necks, backs and knees working in a female-dominated profession.

Over the past 10 years, I have seen a change in increasing workloads, an increase in quality creep, more “patient rounding”, and decreasing respect towards midwives.

I see this disrespect mostly from male partners of patients, who question everything we say, attempt to intimidate us, and treat midwives as handmaidens, requesting that midwives do everything from changing their baby’s nappy, to “taking their blood pressure”.

What more do midwives have to tolerate?

We are losing midwives in droves. Work one shift in any postnatal unit and you will know why. The load is overwhelming, and physically and emotionally exhausting. Fathers and partners need to understand that they play a support role – not a patient role. Plus, babies need to be counted in our workload under our staffing models.

Rachel Bush, Midwife