Page 3041 - Week 08 - Thursday, 16 August 2018
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But improving our maternity services is not just about infrastructure; it is as much about the model of care and ensuring that women can get the type of care they want, whether it is a home birth or midwife-led care in our birthing suites. Through the maternity services offered at both the Centenary Hospital for Women and Children and at Calvary Public Hospital a diverse range of programs are available to women during pregnancy, birth and early parenting. These services have been specifically designed to meet the needs of mothers and their families and their specific circumstances.
Every year over 5,000 babies are born in our city through the public health system. We know our continuity model of care—our CATCH program—is incredibly popular. And we are working to keep up with growing demand for our continuity models of care throughout the expansion of this very popular service. This model of care requires a certain type of highly skilled midwife who is prepared to be available 24 hours a day, seven days a week. Attracting and keeping midwives for this type of service is known to be difficult across Australia.
ACT Health is currently conducting an internal review of our continuity of midwifery care models at the Centenary hospital, with the intent to increase women’s access to these models at Centenary and therefore increase the use of the birth centre space. This review is expected to be finalised later this year and will also inform the new territory-wide approach to maternity service that I will mention shortly.
In addition to this popular model of care, a diverse range of programs are available to women during pregnancy, birth and early parenting at both the Centenary Hospital for Women and Children and Calvary Public Hospital. These services have been specifically designed to meet the needs of mothers and their families and their circumstances. Our specialised health services are of extremely high quality and are provided by a dedicated and hardworking team of doctors, nurses, midwives and allied health professionals, all focused on providing woman-centred, holistic, evidence-based, culturally respectful and high quality care.
The public health services available at both Centenary and Calvary Public Hospital include: comprehensive antenatal education and transition to parenthood programs; continuity of midwifery care services and birth centres for low-risk mums-to-be; standard hospital care also suitable for women with low and moderate-risk pregnancy; multidisciplinary antenatal maternity care in antenatal clinics; special care nurseries for newborn babies who require additional care; and midcall home care and support for new mums in their homes, with midwives able to visit new mothers in their homes every day for the first two weeks.
At Centenary hospital there are also specialty, tertiary-level neonatal services for newborns and premature babies. It is worth highlighting that the neonatal unit at Centenary have won the quality in health care award two years in a row, as well as an award at the Perinatal Society of Australia and New Zealand conference for their presentation on lactation support. Centenary continues to improve its birthing practices, with a recent report by the Australian Institute of Health and Welfare highlighting that the rate of episiotomies in the ACT is 17 per cent, well below the
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