Spotlight on midwives during special day of recognition

12 May 2016

This week the NMBA is recognising the achievement of midwives in supporting newborns, women and families.

On behalf of the Nursing and Midwifery Board of Australia (NMBA), I commend the 33,259 midwives in Australia on International Day of the Midwife and recognise their achievements in supporting newborns, women and families.

The theme of International Day of the Midwife 2016 is Women and Newborns: The Heart of Midwifery. It highlights that midwives around the world work hard every day to ensure women and newborns receive the quality care that they deserve.

NMBA Chair Dr Lynette Cusack, said, ‘Midwives work tremendously hard, around the clock, all year round, to provide top-class, compassionate care to families. The International Day of the Midwife is a great opportunity for me, on behalf of the Board, to say thank you to midwives all around Australia.’

International Day of the Midwife is a global celebration of midwifery and is also used to highlight the need to ensure all women have access to a qualified midwife.

Dr Cusack continued, ‘This day of recognition is a great opportunity to celebrate the amazing work midwives do providing a quality and safe experience for women and their families throughout pregnancy, birth and the postnatal period. The professional care given by midwives contributes to having healthy families across Australia so I’m delighted to recognise the invaluable contribution they make.

‘Through the work of the Board and the National Registration and Accreditation Scheme (the National Scheme), the NMBA supports the vital role midwives play in ensuring mothers can deliver their babies in the safest environment possible.

The NMBA plays a key role in regulating midwives and is committed to ensuring that midwives are able to practise to their full scope and provide safe maternity care for Australian women and their families.

This year the Board has a number of projects underway to support innovation and best practice in midwifery regulation, including:

• Internationally qualified nurses and midwives (IQNMs). The NMBA has work underway to develop an outcomes-based model for the assessment of IQNMs, and orientation program to the Australian health context for IQNMs.
• National health support service for nurses and midwives. The establishment of the national health support service for nurses and midwives follows the project the NMBA completed on health impairment: referral, treatment and rehabilitation for health professionals in 2014/15.
• Review of the code of conduct for nurses and the code of conduct for midwives. The review of the code of conduct for nurses and the code of conduct for midwives continues to be progressed. This work includes a review of the professional boundaries guides for nurses and midwives.
• Midwife standards for practice. The NMBA is developing the midwife standards for practice during 2015/16. This project includes a review of the NMBA competency standards for midwives, and the development of evidence-informed standards for practice for midwives.

The NMBA remain committed to supporting midwives to provide the best for the women they care for: respect, choice, education and safety, combined with kindness and awareness of the needs of the woman and her family.

Dr Lynette Cusack, RN
Chair
Nursing and Midwifery Board of Australia

For more information

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