Ryan Park promises to adopt a recommendation made in several reports and create a position that will provide leadership in maternity and birthing services.

Earlier this year a major report on the midwifery profession found that more than a third of midwives surveyed were considering leaving the profession due to poor working conditions.

The report, Midwifery Futures, found there were not enough midwives or current midwifery students in the pipeline to meet our future needs.

It found New South Wales had the lowest number of midwives in the country. The report’s authors emphasised that “strong and skilled midwifery leadership was essential for developing the future midwifery workforce”.

At Annual Conference, the Minister for Health Ryan Park, made a significant announcement to meet this need.

“Today I have decided that in NSW we need to move towards establishing a Chief Midwife officer in NSW Health.”

“This [decision] came out of the Birth Trauma Inquiry, but to be blunt it’s been a conversation that you, your Association, and you as members and midwives have been having with me for possibly three to five years.

“For some time, I have been worried about maternity services and birthing services across NSW health and hospital facilities.

“I want this to be a focus of the work we do, and I want to improve the care we provide to mums and bubs right across NSW.”

NSWNMA Assistant General Secretary Michael Whaites responded positively to the minister’s announcement saying “report after report” had emphasised the need for midwifery leadership in the system.

“At a time when our profession is under such immense pressure it is absolutely critical, and we thank you for that.”

“We know there have been national reviews of the workforce. What we need to do is look at the recommendations that are already out there and how we can get them implemented. We look forward to doing that work with you.

“Every shift midwives hear ‘you’ve got the numbers’ and they don’t. They’ve got RNs, they’ve got assistants-in-nursing, they’ve got student midwives. They get treated as a number. But when one of these women die or one of their babies die – they are not a number, they are burnt into our souls.”

Ratios are still unfinished business

Minister Park said the fuller implementation of ratios “remains a piece of unfinished business for us”.

“We’ve now seen an additional 500 staff come into the system. Over 30 EDs now are recruiting or have ratios in place. We want to accelerate that as fast as we can and get it to more components in other areas of the hospital.”