More Public Consultation on Midwifery! (& a Thistoll-Note)

There is good news from the front in the battle for Midwifery!

The Regulations Review Committee have made a number of recommendations to the Midwifery Council about their Scope of Practice. These are confidential so we don't know what they precisely were, but in response, the Council have revised the SoP again, and this IS publicly available. Unfortunately Version 5. is really only a little bit better than V.4., but a win is a win, even if the war isn't over yet.

Better yet, if the Regulations Review Committee thinks the revisions are acceptable, the Council claims to want to go through another round of public feedback, giving everyone the opportunity to say yes or no, and then they will decide whether to try and Gazette it again. (Download their letter from the Parliament website).

This is GREAT news; everything that Deb Hayes and every woman's group and everyone who signed Deb's petition and promoted the issue has made this happen. We have another chance to make it an issue that everybody knows about, everybody wants to contribute to, and make it as easy as possible. We can do this, get our words and our midwifery care back, if we keep going! Here's Version 5 below. (We haven't seen the 'compulsory education' yet).

There are some notable improvements: the revolting business of supporting men to induce lactation is made much more difficult (although not impossible via 'whānau-centred care) and the word 'infant' has been removed, which removes the expectation that a midwife is required to care for a woman and her baby after the six-week post-partum period, which is not part of their job.

However, it is still littered with unenforceable and ideological references to cultural safety, still uses 'whānau' without cause and in unclear ways, retains the dubious term 'kahu pōkai' and the word 'woman' is avoided wherever possible.

We want the word woman back. We want WOMAN and BABY-centered care, that places the health of women and babies at the very top, in big, loud words, so there can be no mistaking who Midwifery is for. It should be clear enough to be seen from space.

If you want that too, write to the Regulations Review Committee, write to your MP, write to the Midwifery Council (info@midwiferycouncil.health.nz) - keep saying no, until we have our words back. ALL our words.

We will keep you updated!

P.S. - For those who have been following our Substack, you may recall that Trans Rights Activist and vexatious complainer Mr. Paul Thistoll recently announced on X that he had complained about us to the Speaker of the House, among others. The post was viewed over 2K times, and naturally, we replied to the complaint.

In our response, we commented that Paul seemed to be mistaking his own personal wishlist for facts, and that his claims belonged entirely in the fantasy realm.

It seems we were more right than even we knew. We checked, with the Speaker's office, and it turns out his whole tweet was a fantasy. The Rt. Hon. Gerry Brownlee's office hasn't heard from Mr Thistoll since January.

Interestingly, Thistoll's X account disappeared recently, around the same time as the Disinformation Project collapsed. More winning!

Keep going wāhine. We're making a difference.