In Tasmanian hospitals, babies aren’t counted in staffing ratios, leading to dangerous understaffing. This puts both mothers and newborns at risk. ANMF Tasmania seek parity with our Queensland colleagues who now have babies counted in staffing ratios. Tasmanian women deserve the same level of midwifery care! 

The Australian Nursing & Midwifery Federation (ANMF) believes that every baby should be counted in midwifery workloads. Properly accounting for each baby ensures safe staffing, better care, and improved outcomes for families.

Support the Campaign: Wear the ANMF campaign badges and stickers at work to support the campaign and hand out information to mothers and families.

Complete the survey: Be sure to complete the survey within your workplace, this information allows the ANMF to advocate to count the babies in your workplace.

Share Your Story: Help us raise awareness by sharing your experiences.

Get Involved: Follow our campaign and learn more about how you can make a difference.

Join the ANMF because every baby counts!

MIDWIFERY WORKLOADS

Documenting the work midwives do for mothers and babies is essential for getting babies counted in workloads.

Writing an account of your workload (e.g. via a workload form) makes it difficult to ignore as they are always discussed at the Nursing and Midwifery Consultative Forums (NaMCF) and divisional meetings.

You should submit a form every time you have a workload issue or unsafe workloads. Examples of newborn baby care that can trigger a workload reporting form include (but are not limited to):

• Observations i.e. MSL, instrumental births,
• BSLs
• Intravenous antibiotics
• Care plans with variances on them
• Newborn screening test
• Well newborn check – 45 mins to an hour
• Complex social issues
• Breastfeeding issues
• Temporary Access Orders
  (Babies removed).

Contact your ANMF Organiser if you are unsure how to access workload forms.

WHAT YOU WRITE COUNTS

To ensure the work you do is properly captured and adequately funded, midwives must document their workloads in a way that can be captured (or Coded by Clinical Coders) as a diagnosis.

Coders can only code from diagnosis, not treatment, interventions or results. Document the diagnosis so the coders can make your care count.

For example: “Low BGL, given glucogel as per guideline” does not capture a diagnosis, but “Glucogel given due to hypoglycaemia” does.

Other examples of how to document your work to capture a diagnosis:

• Assisted with breastfeeding due to incoordinate suck
• Attachment difficulties due to flat nipples
• Care given due to diagnosis
• Feeding plan due to incoordinate suck
• Reduce stimulation to baby due to NAS.