Anyone have Patricia Hewitt's email so can ask her how the hell she thinks all women will be delivered by a known midwife by 2009

[jdd0709]

Dame Karlene Davis, General Secretary of The Royal College of Midwives, said: "If a plan for more midwives is not put in place there is little hope of the Government achieving its unambiguous manifesto commitment that by 2009 all women will have choice over where and how they give birth, and that every woman will be supported by the same midwife throughout her pregnancy."

I have just been for my 20 week appointment with community midwife at GP to have it confirmed that I will actually be delivered by "one of the hospital midwives" that I have absolutely no way of having even met beforehand. This will be in September 2007. What is going to change in 2008 when the predicted crisis in midwife levels hits due to retirement of many of the existing ones and not recruitment to makeup the shortfall.

It's disgusting that I am expected to have a complete stranger with their hands up my nether regions during one of the most important events of anyone's life, that I have no way of assesing how competent or not they are beforehand and no way of knowing whether they will annoy the hell out of me or not.

This really annoys me, particularly since even the option of paying for an independent midwife is shortly to be removed due to the insurance issue. Is paying £10000+ in a private hospital really the only option for women in this country that want a civilised, controlled birth.

Can we get Patricia Hewitt (minister for Health who announce the ridiculous 2009 target) on here to expalin herself?

miniegg - please do - I would really like to hear her answer, in all seriousness. Whether or not we need/should/could have one to one care is not my issue (like most here I don't really care as long as the overall quality of care is good which, in my experience under the current system it is not) - the issue is why are they promising something that clearly is not going to happen (unless she has some grand master plan and extra funding up her sleeve, in which case, ask her to divulge it).

In this pg (my second) I have met with both private midwives and various NHS ones (i.e different one at each appointment plus the hospital ones) and each, without exception, told me that there is about to be a crisis in midwifery due to the fact that many midwives are due to retire in the next few years and they are convinced there has not been the necessary recruitment to make up this shortfall, never mind provide the additional level for this supposed one to one care. The other thing they all told me without exception is that the NHS ones feel they are too underesourced to provide the best possible care that they could in all cases and that the private ones left the NHS for that reason.

So Patricia, what is the master plan?

i'm afraid the "master plan" is these "birthing assistants" the government has been talking about - a kind of midwifery equivalent of a healthcare assistant or lower grade nurse. As I understand it they are like a grade down from a qualified midwife. I'm sure it will be great to have them and they will do a wonderful job but they should not be seen as substitutes for fully qualified midwives. Hewitt claims they won't be but I'm taking that with a pinch of salt...

[email protected]

[email protected] might work.

Mini, could you point out to her that it doesn't matter how many HCAs you have, if several women are in labour at the same time (which is always the case on delivery wards), a midwife needs to be available for EACH WOMAN. Because if something goes wrong, it gets complicated, woman needs more than gas and air or it looks like instrumental delivery/c-section is required or cord is wrapped round baby's neck you need a midwife there FAST not someone who is very nice but doesn't have the training to do more than mop your brow (and I don't want HCAs to be doing any more than that, thanks, want someone who has trained for min. three years and passed exams).

AND point out rate of maternal deaths is actually going up which is horrifying for a developed country. And stillbirths are plateau-ing which is also unacceptable. She should be ashamed of those stats.