Shaye Candish, general secretary for the NSW Nurse and Midwives Association, told a snap protest outside Royal Prince Alfred Hospital on July 1 that the union would not allow midwives to be cut.
鈥淲e鈥檝e listened to all the recommendations out of the . We talk to mothers every day and we know midwives are on the edge. We know what it鈥檚 like to work in services every day, turning up not knowing whether they will have enough people to deliver safe care.
鈥淢ore cuts will only make this worse.鈥
The cuts would mean that delivery wards will not have enough staffing to provide one midwife to one woman in labour and for her post partum care.
More than 400 submissions were sent to the , which reported in May last year. It found that many people had suffered from 鈥減reventable birth trauma鈥 and said the health system was failing to address avoidable risk factors.
More midwives, not less, would help prevent this, the rally speakers stressed.
Greens Newtown MP Jenny Leong said she backs the midwives 100% because 鈥測ou know what is right and what is needed to care, not the bureaucrats, the minister, or the people deciding the budget bottom line鈥.
She added that nurses and midwives are 鈥渋n desperate need of a pay rise鈥 and said while NSW Labor awarded NSW Police a 40% pay rise the nurses got nothing鈥.
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