Midwifery has changed over the years, but our health system has not kept up – and our mothers, babies and midwives are paying a heavy price. 

Join us for an online meeting next week to hear about the next steps in our plan to address unsafe midwifery workloads in Queensland.

As you know, newborn babies are still not counted as additional patients in a midwife’s workload, and our midwives are burning out.

As more mothers choose to have babies later in life, workloads are higher than they’ve ever been, and acuity levels of both mothers and babies continue to increase.

But midwives have the solutions – and it all comes down to:

• the Federal Government overhauling funding models so newborn babies are funded and counted
• the Queensland Government introducing midwifery ratios
• both governments working together to create a midwifery workforce plan. 

These are the aims of our Count the Babies campaign. 

You can read more about our asks at www.qnmu.org.au/CountTheBabies.  

Campaign webinars next week

You’re invited to attend one of the following meetings, where we’ll run through our campaign and asks in more detail. This is an opportunity to learn about the evidence we’ve gathered so far, and how you can be part of future activities.

All QNMU members can attend:

Monday 27 March, 5 – 6pm

• Register here

OR 

Friday 31 March, 1 – 2pm

• Register here

All QNMU midwives can attend:

Wednesday 29 March, 6.30 – 7.30pm

• Register here

In this midwives-only session, we will hear from QNMU midwife activists at the Gold Coast University Hospital, who will update us on the midwifery ratio trial currently underway. 

We will also discuss our plans for another audit, to be conducted on International Day of the Midwife (5 May) so we can continue to collect the evidence we need to move governments into action. 

We hope you can come along to one of the above events. For more information about Count the Babies, visit www.qnmu.org.au/CountTheBabies