About our Count the Babies campaign
A midwife’s workload increases dramatically when a baby is born. But currently, a mother and her baby are considered one person, both in terms of midwifery allocation and health funding.
Right now...
Queensland’s midwives are enduring dangerous workloads. More than 50% of Queensland’s midwives believe there is seldom or never enough midwives to provide safe, quality care.
This means mothers and newborns are vulnerable because midwives cannot provide the safe, quality care they are capable of.
Midwives want to deliver quality care to women and their babies. But at the moment…
- Midwifery staffing levels have not kept up with increasing acuity levels of mothers and/or babies, including babies requiring extensive care.
- Interventions and high acuity rates for mothers is resulting in significant breastfeeding issues, which are not being addressed in a timely manner due to unmanageable midwifery workloads.
- Women and babies are being discharged too early and without the level of support they need from their midwives.
- Midwives are getting caught up in a bureaucracy of red tape and paperwork. Clinical guidelines are resulting in significant workloads and intervention of otherwise well and healthy babies.
- IT systems cannot even count the workloads associated with babies.
- A woman’s ability to access midwifery-led models of care is determined by where she lives, rather than choice. These models of care are proven to deliver best results for mothers and babies, but are not readily accessible to most Queensland women.