Next page . . . . Previous page . . . . Speeches . . . . Contents . . . . Debates(HTML) . . . .

Legislative Assembly for the ACT: 1996 Week 4 Hansard (16 April) . . Page.. 920 ..

MRS CARNELL: Mr Speaker, this question is a very important one. As those opposite would know, the basis of Ms Tucker's question is that I organised a full briefing for her on this particular issue. I indicated to the Assembly on 29 February that I was optimistic about the inclusion of planned - - -

Mr Berry: No; you said that it would happen.

MRS CARNELL: Mr Speaker, I am very happy for him to rave on the whole time, but it gets a tiny bit tedious.

MR SPEAKER: I would be much happier if Mr Berry would get up and ask a question instead of interjecting on everybody else's. Ms Tucker has asked the question; she is deserving of an answer. Continue, Chief Minister.

MRS CARNELL: I indicated to the Assembly on 29 February that I was optimistic about the inclusion of planned birth at home for women who are currently participating in the community midwives pilot project. This was, however, as Ms Tucker will remember, conditional upon the final outcome of extensive consultation on policies and protocols that would enable this aspect of the project to be implemented. Based on advice from Dr David Ellwood, the Professor of Obstetrics and Gynaecology at the Canberra Clinical School, it now appears that it would be premature to include homebirth at this stage. I am personally totally committed to public homebirth being an option for women in the ACT. What I feel very personally aggrieved about is that our current obstetricians are unwilling to agree to a protocol that has been - - -

Mr Berry: Carnell goes soft on doctors again.

MRS CARNELL: Mr Berry, would you like to go ahead with homebirth without protocols in place? Yes or no? Go on.

Mr Berry: I would like you to go tough on the doctors and straighten it out.

MRS CARNELL: That is not the issue here. Mr Speaker, we have a problem, in that the doctors involved are - - -

Ms McRae: Well, sack them.

MRS CARNELL: I assume that those opposite will actually go out and deliver the babies for us if we do that.

Mr Speaker, the issue here is that the obstetricians have determined that they will not approve the protocols that are needed for the handling of homebirths in our public hospital system. I refer to the protocols that would be involved in an emergency transfer into our public hospital system of somebody who was participating in a homebirth. Mr Speaker, at this stage, I am unwilling to go ahead without those protocols in place.

Next page . . . . Previous page . . . . Speeches . . . . Contents . . . . Debates(HTML) . . . .