Nurses and Midwives call for stadium like investment in health
Friday 5 May 2023
Media Door Stop
When: Friday 5 May 2023, 11:30am
Where: 182 Macquarie Street, Hobart
Who: ANMF Tasmanian Branch Secretary, Nurses and Midwives
The Australian Nursing and Midwifery Federation (ANMF) Tasmanian Branch today will recognise International Day of the Midwife across the State, to recognise and celebrate the vital work that midwives undertake in Tasmania supporting women, their babies, and Tasmanian families.
This year’s theme of International Day of the Midwife is Together Again: From Evidence to Reality, a notion that is continually achieved by midwives in delivering evidence-based practice every day. In a week that has been dominated by talk of a new Tasmanian Stadium and Tasmanian AFL team, many midwives and their nursing colleagues have been left wondering when the Stadium like investment will be made for the Health Sector, when St Helen’s Private Hospital has announced their closure and public sector Enterprise Agreement negotiations have been dragging on since December 2022.
‘Today we celebrate midwives and all their critical work in providing high quality care to women and their babies across Tasmania. However, it is also a time where we need to elevate and recognise their enormous contributions to the State and its collective health outcomes’, said ANMF Tasmanian Branch Secretary, Emily Shepherd.
Midwives at the St Helen’s Private Hospital this week have been highly distressed at the potential for disruption to the Mother and Baby Unit service delivery, after Healthscope announced its closure in June. Whilst the State Government has committed to adopting the service delivery in the Tasmanian Health Service, many members remain sceptical that there won’t be a degradation to services.
‘This week we have seen a huge focus on a Tasmanian AFL Stadium and team with epic funding announcements, investment proportions that are required to fix the Tasmanian Health System, yet have not come despite midwives and nurses calling for them since 2018.
When we have a health system that is in crisis with massive vacancies affecting service delivery and the health and wellbeing of midwives and nurses, quite rightly members are incensed that this is not a key priority with current negotiations aimed at recruitment and retention dragging on since December 2022’.
The ANMF will be visiting midwives across the State today and will be taking their feedback on further direction and actions for the ANMF to undertake, to elevate the needs of midwives, nurses and the health system, ensuring that there are sufficient nurses and midwives to deliver health services, care and treatment to those who need it when the population swells during AFL games in Tasmania.
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Media contact:
Emily Shepherd, ANMF Tasmanian Branch Secretary
Mobile: 0400 884 021
Email: Emily.Shepherd@anmftas.org.au