Dear present and former midwifery clients,
We are writing to ask for your advocacy and support in our request for hospital privileges for our midwives at The Ottawa Hospital. Not all of our midwives currently hold permanent hospital privileges. At this moment, some of our midwives have temporary privileges which are ending between October 31 and December 31. We have asked for them to become permanent spots as there is demand in Ottawa and many of you had been put on a waiting list before you secured midwifery care.
Hospital privileges allow midwives to provide care to their clients in the hospital setting. Without them, we would have to transfer care to an obstetrician on arrival at the hospital. If our privileges are not extended, these midwives would continue to attend home and birth centre births, but will no longer be able to attend hospital births or assess clients in hospital. This would mean fewer options for choice of birthplace and an increased chance of transfers to obstetricians in labour for all our clients. If a labouring person needs in-hospital care, and there is no midwife with hospital privileges available, their care would have to be transferred to the obstetrician on call.
Despite our best efforts, we have not succeeded in resolving this situation with the hospital administration.
If you would like to advocate on our behalf, we encourage you to contact the administrators at the Ottawa Hospital.
Personal letters are the most powerful, but we wanted to provide a brief form letter for any of you who have your hands full and still want to provide support.
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Dear Dr. Mark Walker, Dr. Virginia Roth and Mr. Cameron Love,
As a midwifery client, I would like to advocate for the expansion of midwifery services in hospital. I am troubled to know that there are people currently on waitlists for midwifery care who will not be able to have a midwife due to restrictions on midwifery hospital privileges. As a proportion of these people will give birth out of hospital and at the birth centre, these restrictions impact choice of birthplace, as well as choice of care provider.
CMNRP recently released a Capacity Plan outlining the needs of our community and identified that “given women in the region requested increased access to midwifery services, midwifery privileging processes at each hospital should be reviewed and opportunities to increase the number of midwifery supported births at OBWC should be explored”:
http://www.cmnrp.ca/en/cmnrp/Capacity_Plan_Final_Report_2019_p4924.html
I look forward to hearing from you on this important issue.
Sincerely,
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Contact information:
1. Send an email to Dr. Mark Walker, Department Head of OB/GYN and Newborn Care, mwalker@toh.ca, Dr. Virginia Roth, TOH Chief of Staff, vroth@toh.ca and Cameron Love, President & CEO: clove@toh.ca. Request an increase in midwifery privileges so that more midwives can be hired, and more clients can access midwifery care.
2. Contact Consumers Supporting Midwifery Care, an Ottawa area grassroots group advocating for more midwifery care. You can network with consumer advocates and have your letter included on the CSMC site.
Website: www.midwiferyconsumers.org
Email: info@midwiferyconsumers.org
Dear Consumers Supporting Midwifery Care,
Are you pregnant?
Help researchers in the UBC Department of Psychiatry learn more about women’s childbirth concerns! If you are pregnant and 18 years or older, you are eligible to participate.
Participation requires 1.0 to 1.5 hours of your time and involves an online survey and a brief telephone interview. You will be asked about your background, reproductive history, current pregnancy, mood, feelings about childbirth as well as any history of sexual abuse or trauma.
With this research, we will assess the validity of a new screening tool for fear of childbirth, and explore the relationship between fear of childbirth, and mental health, history of trauma and symptoms of post-traumatic stress. We hope to create educational materials using the study results.
Register for the study at: survey.ubc.ca/s/childbirth-fear-study-intake/.
See the study Facebook page: www.facebook.com/ChildbirthFearStudy.
UBC Perinatal Anxiety Lab site: http://parlab.med.ubc.ca.
Please see the PDF summarizing the study and feel free to share the study.
Thank you,
Rebecca Ferguson
UBC Perinatal Anxiety Lab
Room 209-2400 Arbutus Rd
Queen Alexandra Centre for Children’s Health
Victoria, BC, V8N 1V7
Phone: (250) 519-5390, ext. 36439
Dear Consumers Supporting Midwifery Care,
You are being invited to participate in a research study that examines Ontario’s response to maternity care needs through midwifery. Specifically you are being invited to participate in an interview about how the Ontario health system has assigned roles to midwifery. Your involvement would mean participating in a 30-60 minute in person or telephone interview to be scheduled at your convenience. During the interview, we will ask you questions about one or two policy directions of interest: 1) the creation of two midwifery-led birth centres in 2014 and/or 2) the recent primary care reform discussion paper (Patients first: a proposal to strengthen patient-centred health care in Ontario), which does not explicitly include midwives as part of the reform. You will be asked about what factors led to the creation of these policies, what stakeholders were involved in the decision-making process, what are the goals of the policies and (if applicable) what are the results being achieved.
Please see a letter of information that gives you full details about the study along with a consent form. If you would like to participate or have questions about the study before you make a decision, please contact Cristina Mattison (see contact details below).
Thank you in advance for your time and consideration.
Kind regards,
Cristina A. Mattison, MSc
Doctoral Candidate
Health Policy
McMaster Health Forum’s Impact Lab
1280 Main St. West, CRL-209
Hamilton, ON, L8S 4K1, Canada
Did you Know?
Midwives and other health care providers are legally obligated to give eye prophylaxis to every baby?
– This is one of the only laws that removes a parent’s decision making authority?
– Ontario is one of 5 provinces or territories in Canada that even have such a law?
– Current research* shows that this practice is outdated and ineffective?
– The Canadian Paediatric Society and the Association of Ontario Midwives have called for the abolishment of this law?
Join us in changing history! Print and sign the petition and return it to the Midwifery Group of Ottawa at 265 Carling Avenue, Suite 700 by October 29th to add your voice.
Have you experienced mental health concerns in pregnancy or after your baby’s birth? Are you a health care provider who provides care to pregnant or postpartum women? Volunteers are needed for research project through the Midwifery Group of Ottawa and the Ottawa Birth & Wellness Centre: here’s more information for health care providers and women. Participants must be over 18 years of age. Study is starting October 2015.
Marching for Maternity Care. Join us, on Labour Day to draw attention to the need for mother-baby friendly maternity care practices locally and throughout Canada on Monday, September 2, 2013, gathering at 10:00am, march begins at 10:15am, in Ottawa, starting at the Women’s Monument at Minto Place Park (intersection of Elgin and Gilmour), and walking to Parliament Hill (~1.3km). Join this event on Facebook.
Similar marches will be held at locations across the country on September 2, by other Mothers of Change Chapters. Be a part of this growing movement!
Prepare for the Birth Rally: get some bristol board, use craft supplies from around the house (paint, pencils, markers), and involve your children. Make some posters to share what is important to you about birth.
The Birth Rally is the culminating event for the Mothers Matter Campaign. Share why birth and how mothers are treated during the birth process matters to you, at: informedchoice.ca/mothers-matter.
If access to midwifery care and choice of care provider are important to you, I invite you to write a letter regarding the way that the Transfer Payment Agency is requiring that Village Midwifery justify accepting clients outside their catchment area. This is an urgent matter that affects women’s right to choice of care provider, and could potentially limit access to midwifery care if the current policy is not changed. We ask that letters be written by January 31st to policy makers and care-providers: the Ministry of Health and Long Term Care; LHIN (the Local Health Integration Network who plan, integrate and fund local health services); the Transfer Payment Agency; the Association of Ontario Midiwves; the College of Midwives of Ontario; and to midwifery practices in the surrounding area.
You can also sign the petition to the Ontario Ministry of Health and Long term Care, requesting that catchment areas not be used to limit access to care.
Midwives value their clients’ perspectives when it comes to making decisions about care and the Clinical Practice Guidelines (CPGs) committee at the Association of Ontario Midwives is now asking midwifery clients, past and present, to help create CPGs for midwives.
Volunteers will be asked to review information and provide feedback to a committee of midwives during telephone meetings that will take place a few times a year over the next 24 months. You would help formulate the questions that CPGs answer and review the final product. Learn more »
Submit your story. Help change childbirth for our sisters, friends, and daughters. Violence against women is unacceptable. Violation of informed consent is a form of violence against women. We need your stories as we will be presenting to the government of Canada in the near future. Your voice must be heard. Submit your story »
Please vote every day for Mother Health International. $5000 will save the lives of mothers and babies. This is an easy way to make a difference!
http://www.kveller.com/vote/
