Midwives in Victoria
There are a range of programs and initiatives to support public health services and maternity providers.
Rural Midwifery clinical supervision- New Initiative
$5 Million has been committed over four years to enhance rural midwifery clinical supervision and rural maternity services by:
- Attracting new midwifery graduates to work in rural settings
- Supporting existing rural RNs to undertake postgraduate midwifery studies, and
- Improving the retention of existing rural midwives and increasing clinical connections.
The activities funded will differ across sites and across years, dependant on demand and local drivers. Current activities include:
- Supporting an increase in RN/RM graduates undertaking graduate programs within rural settings (for 2012 academic year)
- Establishment of rural consortia’s to establish and deliver collaborative early graduate programs for RN/RM graduates that blend exposure at larger sites with smaller sites. This is attracting graduates to sites that have been unsuccessful in employing midwifery graduates in the past.
- Funding each rural region (5) to provide preceptor training to the RM’s they employ to ensure they are ready and skilled to support students and new graduates in the workplace
- The development of a combined RM/RN graduate year program outline that will be a resource for health services that are employing graduates of the combined Bachelors of Nursing & Midwifery for the first time and need to implement a combined graduate year program.
- Specific rural Midwifery scholarships for RN’s employed at small rural maternity services (less than 600 birth separations annually) to undertake postgraduate studies to register as a midwife. This ensures that dual registered staff are available to flexible meet the services demands of smaller rural services were birth numbers are low.
- Funding of additional postgraduate midwifery training places for those rural midwifery students’ clinical placements/supervision (who have received the midwifery scholarships).
- The DH is finalising an agreement to manage the Rural Midwifery Clinical Placement / Exposure Program, a brokerage service for the Victorian rural midwifery workforce over the next four years. The Rural Midwifery Clinical Placement / Exposure Program will assist health services to provide targeted up skilling and clinical exposure for their midwives so they can to meet their professional and the service’s demands for contemporary clinical practice in areas where birth numbers are low. It is anticipate the first placements will occur in quarter 1 2012-13.
Collaborative arrangements with eligible midwives for Victorian public hospitals
The department has funded the development of a framework for use by Victorian public hospitals that are considering a private practice midwifery model. The framework will provide guidance on the appropriate mechanisms to consider, implement or review collaborative arrangements with Eligible Midwives (EMs) providing midwifery care to women who are admitted privately and seeking to birth in hospital under the care of the EM.
The draft of the framework developed by the 3Centres Collaboration is currently being reviewed by the department.
To find out more about this work, go to:
Collaborative arrangements with eligible midwives for Victorian public hospitals (pdf, 215kb)
Amendments to the Drugs Poisons and Controlled Substances Act
The Drugs, Poisons and Controlled Substances Amendment (Supply by Midwives Midwife) Act 2012 amends the Drugs, Poisons and Controlled Substances Act 1981 to provide a mechanism for suitably qualified and authorised registered midwives to prescribe scheduled medicines.
An FAQ has been developed to help answer some of the questions about how this Act and in due course the changes to the regulations will operate.
To find your copy of the Act go to: www.legislation.vic.gov.au
Contact
For further information about:
- Rural Midwifery Clinical Supervision, contact Nursepolicy@health.vic.gov.au
- Maternity Services in Victoria: www.health.vic.gov.au/maternitycare/