Episode 227 - The Grandmother of all Rallies
Mel:
[0:00] Welcome to the Great Birth Rebellion podcast. I'm your host, Dr. Melanie Jackson. I'm a clinical and research midwife with my PhD, and each episode, I cast a critical eye over current maternity care practice by grappling with research and historical knowledge to help you get the best out of your pregnancy, birth, and postpartum journey.
Mel:
[0:25] Welcome to today's episode of the Great Birth Rebellion podcast. I'm your host, Dr Melanie Jackson. Today I've invited Caitlin who is the coordinator of Home Birth Australia because we're going to talk about a interesting political topic that is really current and relevant here in Australia for our home birth context. However I do think if you're listening from overseas there is a lot to learn from this conversation about how to enact change and advocate for change in all areas of maternity care. Caitlin and her wider community of consumers are expertly navigating political issues that we as midwives really can't move the needle on all on our own. We absolutely need the voice of women and the activity of women to keep this moving. And that's what we're going to talk to you about today. If you are in Australia,
Mel:
[1:17] There's some big announcement that we need to share with you on this podcast. I would like to personally thank the sponsor of this podcast because that means that you get to listen for free. Poppy Child from Pop That Mama is a doula and hypnobirth practitioner and she's a sponsor for today's podcast. Poppy has an online course, hypnobirthing course. It's called the Birth Box and it's already helped thousands of women.
Mel:
[1:44] I get behind the work that Poppy is doing. In the birth box. It's practical strategies to help you get ready for labor and birth, but also the challenges of parenting. And with my code, if you type Melanie in at the cart, you'll get 25% off. So if you're preparing for birth, go check it out. You will be so glad you did. The link is in the show notes. Type Melanie at the cart and get 25% off.
Mel:
[2:12] Thank you Poppy for sponsoring this podcast so that everybody else gets to listen completely free. Let's get started on today's episode. I might introduce Caitlin first before we make this big announcement. Caitlin, a little bit of an introduction for our listeners.
Katelyn:
[2:29] I am, as you mentioned, the coordinator of Home Birth Australia, but I've also been president of Home Birth New South Wales for a number of years, whereas I'm sort of new to Home Birth Australia as of the start of this year. And, yeah, I work in that advocacy space trying to make change happen as a, well, I call myself a home birth mother. Both my babies were transfers, but I tried to kind of claim that position because I know it's difficult for a lot of transfer mums. But we are home birth mums at the end of the day. We're philosophically part of that community. I came in here from my experiences of having private midwifery care and planned home births and everything.
Mel:
[3:10] Perfectly positioned to be advocating for women to have choice and access to all kinds of services.
Mel:
[3:17] So Caitlin, you've been working in the space of activism and the big announcement is that, a lot of these efforts, although Mammoth, unfortunately in this circumstance, have not budged on what we need to budge on and that is the issue of professional indemnity insurance for, privately practising midwives who are caring for women planning home births. Now, I know that sounds super niche, but here in Australia.
Mel:
[3:50] Working as a private midwife has been fraught with the issue of not being able to access a full insurance product, even though our registration body requires, as part of our registration, to be insured. And to put it into context, we are university-trained health professionals. As private midwives, we have an additional qualification in what we call endorsement, endorsement as a private midwife or an endorsed midwife. Provider numbers, Medicare rebates, yet we're still having trouble accessing an insurance product. We finally have one for the majority of private midwives. However, now the problem has arisen where our second midwives, who we are required to have at the birth, they don't have an insurance product. And so come January 2027, all of the private midwives who have been relying on other midwives to come as the second midwife to a home birth will no longer be able to rely on them. And this is a big issue because we have to have two midwives at a birth. So can you talk to us about the lead up in all the advocacy work that you've been doing? What's led up to the problem where we are now in a scenario where women won't be able to have access to the midwives that they need in order to plan home births?
Katelyn:
[5:14] Obviously there's some of it that I wasn't necessarily as involved in as I could but I've tried to kind of catch up basically the government introduced this insurance policy and was like great news guys because you know you've been operating under this exemption for the longest time and it just kept it keeps getting renewed and they've said great news guys we solved the problem we gave you an insurance policy and everyone was like what from from where with who how did this happen who did you consult who helped you create this to make sure that it's fit for purpose and they were like yeah yeah it's good we're telling you it's good it's fine um it wasn't fine because it had a label attached to it where midwives were going to be insured to support low-risk women at home and that was immediately a problem because who decides
Katelyn:
[6:05] What that actually refers to, like what guidelines, what criteria will they use? Will it be down to the insurer? Will there be a more clear guideline, whatever else? Plus the fact that majority of women who birth at home aren't actually in a really neat low risk box. So that was a massive issue. We thankfully got that overturned really quickly. That's one of the quickest advocacy wins we've ever had and had that label scrapped entirely. So the insurance product now just points to existing policy and guidelines for midwives. And yeah, it's now on the market available for private midwives to be able to support at home, to have cover for that. The difficulty is that because they didn't consult with the right people and include them in the design process, they've sort of missed this gap where the policy that they've introduced requires There's the endorsement. So you mentioned the endorsement before. And the endorsement is an amazing qualification for the private midwives who are operating their own business and they're operating their own private practice to have because it does give you access to the Medicare numbers, PBS, being able to order your scans and your bloods and whatever else that the women might need in their care. The midwife is able to give her the complete care that she needs.
Katelyn:
[7:26] So that's great for the primary midwife, but it's not necessary for the second midwife as far as we're concerned because they don't need any of that. They're just turning up in a support role. And midwives operating in the second role, they have to be registered midwives. You know, in order to operate as a midwife, you have to be registered. They have all of the skills to operate in that role. They don't actually need endorsement. Endorsement is not going to make their home birth safer.
Mel:
[7:56] Yeah, and the whole endorsement thing didn't come around to enhance the safety of midwives practice. It really was the pre-requirement set by our insurer to even access our insurance product. And that's the whole issue is that the insurer is saying, we will give you insurance, but you have to be endorsed. And it's the only product we have access to. So it's not even a regulatory or legislative requirement that midwives are endorsed. It's not like we have extra superpowers when we're endorsed. It just so happens it's the only qualification that unlocks our insurance product. And ironically, if you work in a publicly funded home birth program, neither midwife has to be endorsed and they've got insurance.
Katelyn:
[8:46] So it's really, it seems to be not a safety thing.
Mel:
[8:50] No, it's not about safety. It's literally red tape put there by a insurance company. And the government is yet to come and meet us with a solution for that, despite the fact that we are required to have two midwives at a birth and it's this is like an obstacle to having two midwives so if that primary midwife who's fully qualified fully endorsed fully insured can't find a second that's the end of their business it's the end of access to home birth for the women in that area, let's talk about the first because so so part of the solution, has been months and months, really almost the whole year has been spent advocating for a solution to the insurance issue that we all knew was coming at the end of 2026.
Mel:
[9:43] They keep renewing the exemption that we were under because they haven't found a solution. But you know, that exemption started about 18 or 19 years ago.
Mel:
[9:55] And Caitlin, I know when the first rally happened, the mother of all rallies happened which was the kind of the line in the sand where these insurance issues started you were in high school, and I was in my very first year of private practice and you now have three children, um and I've been in private practice for nearly 19 years so, Let's go all the way back to that first rally. The mother of all rallies is what it was. What were they advocating for? And I know that you were still in school, but I know you have an idea of the history of where we've come from.
Katelyn:
[10:36] Yeah, the fight at the time, my understanding of the history is that the government who was in power at the time created the basically APRA, the Health Practitioner Regulation Agency. So a body that oversees regulation of health services and part of the formation of that was a requirement for all registered health professionals to have professional indemnity insurance it went into health legislation so it was law and that's great because that you know protects the women or you know in medical terms generally it protects the patient or the client and it also protects the clinician from you know losing their house if someone sues them but provides people recourse for some sort of medical benefits if there's negligent care. But there was no provider for insurance for private midwives. And so overnight, it was sort of going to become illegal to offer home birth as a midwife. And the community rallied big time in response to that. And yeah, they had this massive rally. I'm hearing different figures from people all over the place, anywhere from 1,000, 3,000 to 9,000. I feel like probably 9,000 took part from a file in total. But there was definitely somewhere around 1,000 or 3,000.
Mel:
[11:58] My memory of it at the time was that there was about 3,000 women present.
Katelyn:
[12:03] In Canberra?
Mel:
[12:04] In Canberra.
Katelyn:
[12:05] Yeah, that's what I think too from my knowledge.
Mel:
[12:09] 3,000, yeah. I mean the fun little parts too is that, you know, they literally ran out of flights that could include babies. So many women went and so many midwives went and it was so impactful. And we did get the result from that action, from that really loud, you know, obvious action. And we got, we didn't get insurance, but we got an exemption from the insurance requirement, which has been in place till now. And what they're saying is, is no longer are they going to give us an exemption. However, they've also not given us a suitable insurance product.
Katelyn:
[12:47] Yes.
Mel:
[12:48] So now here comes the follow-up and the big announcement, Caitlin. Do you want to let us know what the next steps are? Because you guys have exhausted, every other avenue, as have the Australian College of Midwives and all the other consumer agencies that are working in Australia have been, absolutely after this issue. All avenues have failed. So this is our big announcement. What's the plan?
Katelyn:
[13:14] So the plan is a grandmother of all rallies. So essentially we turn up again and we make ourselves very big and very loud and very difficult to ignore because I think it's really easy for the government to see this as a really niche issue that is sort of non-urgent and not really a big deal, particularly as in their minds I think they think, well, there is insurance. Their midwives can just go and get endorsed and then go and get it. It's like there's so many more layers to why that isn't really a solution but yeah the grandmother of all rallies so given the lead time we're working with is very small because we only have about a month left of parliament like before they wrap up sitting weeks of the for the year so we're working on a very short lead time so we're trying to organize a series of local rallies across the country I feel like we've got something like I don't know 19 locations or something set up so far local rallies across Australia happening on Saturday the 21st of November and followed up by the grandmother of all rallies on the lawns of Canberra Parliament House on the 24th of November which is the final sitting week for the year so it's really the last chance to just get ourselves heard and get things happening.
Mel:
[14:36] And what people need to realize is this rally isn't like the answer. It's kind of like putting ourselves out there to get this issue back on the agenda because all of the pre-work has been done and that's all been ignored. So this is kind of the next step in activism and you referred to it as like the nuclear button that if we're going to hit it we're going to hit it for the right reasons and, this is the same reason we were protesting 18 years ago, at the mother of all rallies we were fighting for insurance just for your primary midwife, now we need insurance for your second midwife and I do think numbers are important so if you're hearing this and you're thinking I might go to a rally if you can muster the like Like if you have the capacity to come out on the 24th of November, literally on the lawns of Parliament House, bring a sign, bring your family, any extra bodies that you can bring to fill the space. They don't even have to be on board, really. Put a shirt on your husband and send him out.
Mel:
[15:47] This would be impactful because there's things like media coming. It'll be in papers, on radio. It gets attention. And then we can open the doors for another possible solution. So, Caitlin, what's the work that's going to happen after? I know you don't want to go there because we're one step at a time.
Katelyn:
[16:08] Yes.
Mel:
[16:09] The protest isn't the only thing, but we want you to click the link in the show notes to register for the rally. You don't have to pay. It just means we know how many people because there's so much organizing that's going to happen.
Katelyn:
[16:22] Yeah, it's really important to register for a million different reasons. Please.
Mel:
[16:27] Yes. I imagine there's logistics of like telling people, by the way, we've got this many people coming. You can't just show up on the lawn.
Mel:
[16:35] There's whole lots of things that go on in the background. So what are we advocating for at this rally? What kind of needs to be on our sign and what are you asking for at this rally?
Katelyn:
[16:47] We want the message to be very clearly. This is not just about home birth like yes it is but also it's also about access to choice for women generally and so it's very much protect birth choices that's kind of the overall slogan we're going for and what we have a very clear sort of three-phase demand of the government which is an immediate temporary emergency urgent fix that prevents the collapse of home birth particularly in the regions, right? So in the metro areas, it's not as critical because there are other endorsed midwives operating, but they're all going to have to reduce their caseloads to be able to second for each other. But in the regions, we're looking at total shutdown of a lot of private midwifery services in a lot of places across the country. So an immediate short-term fix that can at least just prevent that immediate collapse come January, plus convening a working group of the right people, not just government stakeholder box tickers, but the right people who know what this product needs to develop a permanent solution and then a delivery of that permanent solution in 2027.
Katelyn:
[18:04] And then also to give us Medicare for home birth after then, because right now we don't actually have a Medicare number to be able to claim rebates for home birth services with private midwives. And we've been told in the past that insurance is the thing that prevents that from happening. And so if we have a permanent solution in place and private midwives are all able to be insured, the seconds are able to be insured, there is no good reason why they can't give us that after that. And it will help alleviate a lot of the access issues for home birth across Australia.
Mel:
[18:35] And women can get free maternity care in the public services.
Katelyn:
[18:39] That's right.
Mel:
[18:41] It doesn't make any sense to not provide free maternity care just because you've chosen a different location with the same.
Katelyn:
[18:49] Particularly as we save the government money generally. Like it costs them less money for women to home birth than it does if they go into the system.
Mel:
[18:57] Well, the midwives are still part of the workforce who are providing maternity care as well.
Katelyn:
[19:02] It should be so simple.
Mel:
[19:04] Right, I know. And I mean, even the emergency solution, for example, for 19 years, they've extended the exemption because there hasn't been a suitable solution and they've pushed the problem up until this point. And now they're saying, we will no longer offer you a solution to the insurance issue, but we also won't offer you a suitable insurance product. So at the very least, you're asking people, We need a quick fire solution in the possibility of extending the exemption, which they've done over and over and over again anyway. Why not one more year while you solve the problem actually? And then it's about finding an insurance product that will either serve non-endorsed midwives or obviously make endorsement a lot easier, but, we haven't removed the barriers to making endorsement easier either, which they were also working on.
Mel:
[19:56] But the truth of it is is that a lot of the midwives who are offering second services.
Katelyn:
[20:02] Actually don't want to
Mel:
[20:04] Be endorsed well they don't need to be endorsed they're actually working full-time jobs as midwives and going out to home births is kind of like this delectable side hustle that they can yeah they can help the midwives in the area who are in full-time practice, And to ask these midwives to now buy an insurance product, it makes it not a financially viable activity to be dabbling in second midwife activity.
Katelyn:
[20:33] Yeah, it starts at $2,400 a year. Like that is not a small amount of money. And particularly, I mean, we surveyed the community in June as part of trying to put data together to take to the government. And it's a median of four across Australia that second midwives who are just doing seconds, who don't, you know, work on their own private practice, that's how many they're attending a year. Yeah, exactly. That's it.
Mel:
[20:57] And what happens is...
Katelyn:
[20:58] I can't justify it.
Mel:
[20:59] Yeah, and the private midwives, what they usually have is a pool of second midwives who are basically just whoever's available on the day. You know, there's some kind of ring around or group chat of like, hey, who's around tonight? Yeah. And so, yeah, one midwife might dilute their second services over four or five midwives. And so they do only need to come to a few births a year in order to serve that midwife and those women. So we do need a more workable solution and so that's what you're asking for. Also, let's be honest, we already have the answers. Yes. We just need the people in power.
Katelyn:
[21:42] To enact them. Yes. We just need them to follow our advice and our suggestions. Yeah.
Mel:
[21:48] Yeah. Yeah. Basically, what you need the public to do. Is go down to the link in the show notes, tick that button and say, I am going to come to this rally and actually come to Canberra on the 24th.
Katelyn:
[22:02] Don't just tell us you're going to. Don't just tell us.
Mel:
[22:05] Actually show up. You don't have to do anything else. If you could be a body there and help us make a crowd, that's enough for now. But if somebody wants to do more, what could they do?
Katelyn:
[22:18] We have a lot of people who put their hands up to help us organize if people want to get involved with that I'm more than happy to see if there's like you know teams that need more help we've kind of tried to divvy this up into like different teams doing different jobs so that all these little tasks that need doing like stuff like the flights and you know contacting the airlines and seeing if we can get group rates set up or new flights set up where there's not the times don't align for people to fly in and out the same day and you know there's so many different working moving parts of it so you're welcome to contact me and put your name forth if you want to help with that fundraising wise we're going to be looking for people to either make donations or as far as businesses go like we're hoping to charter some buses from places that again we can do driving on the same day we're hoping to be able to kind of take that to some businesses and organizations and then be able to say like hey this company helped us get another 200 people to the rally. Yay, them. Everyone go and support them. So there'll be different ways that, yeah, financially people can contribute.
Katelyn:
[23:28] There'll be more ways we're working on to be able to take part from afar if like physically you just can't get there. Like if you're on call for someone or it's just like an impossibility, but we're working on that. Obviously, we want to try and prioritize everybody to get there in person as much as possible. Other than that, if you have other connections that you can share with us, like if you know someone who's got a really big platform or a really big reach or political sort of reach that you can put us in touch with and we can try and leverage this because again we really want to see women who maybe wouldn't choose home birth for themselves but really respect that they believe that all women should have access to choice in their care as well get behind us too because you know this is this is a problem that comes from the government thinking they are offering a solution I mean I know there's lots of people who want to say like it's all intentional and they're just trying to limit choice and they're whatever else and I think that the evidence doesn't really stack up to that as far as when you look at you know we are getting more and more for private midwives as you say
Katelyn:
[24:39] I think that they just have no freaking clue. I think that's the reality. They don't consult with the right people and they just have no idea and they can't be experts in every field that they have to represent. You think about all the issues that they have to make decisions on. They cannot know it all. They need us to tell them. So this is hardly going to be the last time that, you know, women have to stand up for birth or maternity care or health care and say, hey you're making a mess of this just so you know and the home birth community will always back the rest of women to choose what's right for them we'd really love to see the rest of the women in Australia also turn up to help us maintain choice and access to choice for women across Australia
Mel:
[25:26] So quick summary essentially about 18 or 19 years 2009 it was I should stop saying anything yeah In, 2009, we found ourselves in a situation where we were by law required to have professional indemnity insurance, which is not the issue. We're quite open and happy for that. Yes, please. The problem was is no insurance company could offer us a product. For that reason, the government and our registration body gave us an exemption from that requirement and said, look, if you follow these rules, we'll exempt you from professional indemnity insurance.
Mel:
[26:03] They kept trying to find a solution and failing that, they kept extending the exemption. They're saying we will not continue to extend the exemption beyond December 2026. However, they failed to find a solution. So what we're asking for is professional indemnity insurance or an extension on the exemption in the meantime until we can find the solution. And then once they've found the solution, the Medicare funding that's owed to the women who are choosing this because we do have Medicare items for the other elements of our carers' private midwives that are insured. So there's no reason to withhold that. On the surface, this is a really simple solution. We just need this this protest this rally is about bringing the problem to the government to represent it to say we need you to solve this problem so we need noisy people passionate about women's choice and I was thinking about it you know my daughter's nine.
Mel:
[27:04] And I thought imagine if this problem continues to go for another 10 12 15 years, what happens now in this situation is actually going to affect my daughter's birth choices. And so what I want to encourage women out there is you might be finished having your babies, but if this doesn't go through, your children are going to have a problem accessing choice in their births. So this is a fight for the next generation. And there are women who fought in previous generations for what we have now. So I would just encourage everybody to see this as that, as something that they
Mel:
[27:45] can do to change birth and access to midwives for the next generation. But there is also a deeper issue and something that you've been trying to bring to the attention of the government too, and that's about what happens to women when you remove choices. Basically, we know that if you reduce access to midwives for women, they won't make a different decision and just go and find a midwife who's working in the hospital. They will still choose to give birth at home. They'll just choose to do that without a midwife, which is called free birth.
Mel:
[28:18] But it won't necessarily kind of be their first preference. And one thing that the government needs to know is that actually instead of making birth safer by requiring this kind of insurance product, they're actually making it more dangerous for women, because women won't suddenly change their birth choices, and just go, oh, well, I can't find a midwife. I've got a hospital. They'll say, oh, well, I can't find a midwife. I'll do it without one. Has that been brought to their attention?
Katelyn:
[28:46] Yes. And it seemed to be one of the few things that did kind of like catch their attention to a degree because we will always support the rights of women to birth where and with whom they feel most comfortable and most safe with. And for some women, that will be an empowered decision to free birth and like all power to those women. We're behind you. We'll fight for your rights. This is not that situation. We're talking about women who want to have a midwife with them, would make that choice above all others. And are instead feeling like they are left without options and have to do this which then leaves them birthing in potentially in fear and potentially afraid of the repercussions of that decision because it hasn't been an empowered choice and then potentially afraid to reach out where they do feel like they might need support or they might need help because they don't want to be judged as a result of their decisions and we've mentioned this to the government I just I think part of the issue is that they see us as a very small proportion and the problem is we are a very small portion of the birthing women across Australia and so I think they've sort of just put us in like a too small too difficult too finicky not important enough basket when they have other things that
Katelyn:
[30:09] And that's why we kind of need to show up in a really big way. So I've actually secured a meeting with the Assistant Health Minister tomorrow after I emailed to say, just so you know, we're getting ready to turn up in tomorrow next month. So I've never had a meeting request approved within two days, but there you go. So I don't know whether that's them already a little bit nervous about what we're planning to do. I don't know. Like maybe they just want me to stop emailing them. I don't know. the noisy
Mel:
[30:39] Wheel so my mum always said the noisy wheel gets the oil and we have to be we're staying silent it's not going to work.
Katelyn:
[30:48] No we'll
Mel:
[30:49] Not get what we need no.
Katelyn:
[30:50] Yeah but that is the primary message we're trying to get across to them um and that's you know our political advisors have sort of said like the arguments for the midwifery workforce you know because the midwives who have to close up shop they're not coming back to the system they're lost you don't get those back you know those arguments are all valid the the mentoring pathway that midwives can use to get into private practice by working as a second all of those are great but midwives there are not as many midwives as there are women this has to be a focus on how this impacts women on a whole so yeah so that's what we're trying to get that message across to them whether they think they're bluffing or whether they think we're bluffing I don't know but um they're wrong and they need to They need to be prepared for the fallout.
Mel:
[31:36] Well, women aren't bluffing. I mean, I did my PhD on the topic of free birth and why women choose free birth. And 90% of the women who I interviewed, 90% said free birth wasn't my first choice. I actually wanted a midwife and I either couldn't afford it, there wasn't one in my area, or the one in my area wasn't somebody I wanted to work with, or I got risked out of a home birth option and no midwife would take me on. And they don't default to going to hospital to give birth, the women who were wanting to choose home birth. They default to free birth, but they talk about feeling forced into free birth. There was 10% who said, look, I was going to free birth. It didn't matter the situation. And that's obviously completely fine that the women we're advocating for in this scenario are the women who felt forced to free birth.
Mel:
[32:29] And we know that they won't suddenly comply with the public structure of going to a hospital to have their babies. Giving women access to midwives who can attend to them at home is actually a, nod to honoring women's choices. And then the side note is that there's somebody there to help them if they need it. And you actually will then be creating a safer circumstance for them to give birth because if there's an emergency, there's somebody there who can either recognize it or help them.
Mel:
[32:59] So this is not only a choice issue but a safety issue. Let's talk about the next point then because the next point is that as always whenever you remove choices the women who will suffer most are those who are, rural and regional areas and it looks really bad when a government makes a decision that's going to further disadvantage rural and regional women. So can Can you talk to us about what is the unique scenario that will unfold for rural and women in the regions if this goes through and the midwifery pool is further reduced? What impact will that have on women who are living outside of the metropolitan areas?
Katelyn:
[33:41] I mean, we know that for many of those women, for a start, they don't have MGPs. They don't have continuity of midwifery care options. Private practice midwife might be it. And when we have the evidence we do for continually midwifery care, it's unethical to take that option away from them. The only way they can manage to get it. This is probably a topic that's going to get me feeling a bit fiery. So, stand by. But fair enough. But I mean, the world... It's very frustrating, you know. Yeah. So, these women...
Katelyn:
[34:13] Are living in areas where they can be sometimes, you know, three plus hours away from their closest maternity centre. And they're constantly shutting down all of these maternity units in these regional hospitals as well. So they're getting kind of further and further away. And we are having increased numbers of the bush babies born on the side of the road as women are travelling to have their babies. I mean, I can't fathom, I have a friend who birthed her second baby or third baby of 40 minutes you know there's no world where she would be able to travel that far and there is also no world where it is safer for her to have that baby on the side of the road where trucks are flying past her on a national highway compared to in the safety of her own home where maybe her midwife hasn't even made it but is en route on the phone able to talk to her has a relationship with her knows her clinical situation and is able to guide them through what they need to do next as opposed to the woman on the side of the road with the trucks flying past who's on the phone to the triple zero operator. And as someone who once worked in that job, we have no clue what we're doing. We have a script to read. That is it. And it's a bad script, frankly. It's not a helpful script. So no, that is not safety. That is, there's no world where that is safety. That is just putting women and babies at risk.
Mel:
[35:33] And you already know that the midwives who were talking about having to close their private practices are the ones in rural areas who they're the only endorsed midwife and they're relying on a pool of other midwives to be their second. That's how they're keeping their private practice and their services going. And the government is saying now they're going to further restrict that capacity. And the result is fewer services again for rural women. And so that looks really bad. It looks so bad for a government to be actively choosing to restrict birth choices for the most vulnerable women.
Mel:
[36:11] In the remote regions.
Katelyn:
[36:12] Yeah it's really poor form
Mel:
[36:14] It's poor form so and we and I think you're right when you said before it's impossible for governments to be across every issue, but that's why they're supposed to listen to wise stakeholders they're supposed to say okay we acknowledge there's this issue, you guys are intimately in this space you know what the solutions are what can we do to help, and part of the problem has been lack of consultation and now lack of action and potentially lack of interest so, I think our final point is Caitlin that we need to get this issue in front of the people who can make change and I do believe it's an easy solution, considering the wins that there have been over the last 19 years for private midwives Medicare insurance endorsement, PBS we can write all kinds of referrals we don't have a collaborative agreement anymore we can literally work as autonomous practitioners the next step is just to have our services fully insured and fully subsidized so we've already made all the big dramatic changes that need to happen that led up to this just need appetite now to just make the last little change right yeah, Okay. Final call to action. Come to Canberra. Yes.
Katelyn:
[37:31] If you can only make one rally, make it Canberra. So if you have to choose between getting to like your local Gold Coast rally or whatever it might be, or coming to Canberra, make it Canberra. Same with everybody across the country.
Mel:
[37:46] If you can go to both, go to both. Yes.
Katelyn:
[37:48] Go to both if you can go to both, by all means. But if you have to pick, make it Canberra.
Mel:
[37:51] Yes. And we acknowledge that it's going to be a little bit of an inconvenience, but no change will happen if we don't inconvenience ourselves a little bit. And this is going to be a win for all women. It's going to be a win for our children to be able to have access to the same things that we have too. So it's 24th of November, 2026, it's not 2027. I'm going to put the link to register for the rally in the show notes. Just click that button, put your name down. Bring your people. Let's just get together. And also, oh my gosh, it feels so good to be with actual real people. And it'll be an experience. I'm taking this as an opportunity to show my children how change happens. Like, come on guys, if you want to be living in a world that is good for you, you've got to fight for that. And that's what we're doing. Yeah.
Katelyn:
[38:43] I had a great email from a midwife in Cairns. I think she's a midwife. And she said she was at the last rally with the with baby in her belly and she's bringing that baby to this rally who is now yeah 19 or whatever he is um and she said yeah he's really interested to be involved not because he's that invested in the issue but just because he wants to tick attend a protest rally off his bucket list which i loved i was like that's the energy that's what we need just get people who just want to be a part of a protest rally has that ever been on your bucket list, come along.
Mel:
[39:16] Exactly.
Katelyn:
[39:17] Join us.
Mel:
[39:18] Exactly. At this point, we don't care if you want to say anything or do anything. Just please be a body at the running. Turn up. It's at the very core, it's about women having choices. Whether or not you birth in hospital by cesarean section, if you're planning a home birth or a free birth, we can all agree that women having choices is a good thing.
Katelyn:
[39:39] 100%.
Mel:
[39:40] Amazing. All right, Caitlin. So I will put all the details for Home Birth Australia down in the show notes so you know, basically, you're our contact point kind of for information. But there are other consumer organizations involved. Can you give a shout out to who else is coming on board for this?
Katelyn:
[39:59] Yeah, we've worked very closely with obviously the Home Birth State-based organization, so Home Birth New South Wales, Home Birth Queensland, Home Birth Vic. There's been Perth Birthlink, the Maternity Choices Australia. They're an amazing group. They're doing amazing things. They've been great. Hygieia Health are another really big organization that have been really amazing. Um better birth silawara who are a fantastic local group who get behind all kinds of initiatives and have a lot of knowledge to share in this like rallying space the birth time group there's the born at home film group there's australian college of midwives yes so they've actually um yeah they've gotten right behind us for this as well and you know they're helping me out with like sharing where they can all the information, encouraging members along. Yeah, there's also been a maternity consumer network has been doing a lot of work alongside as well with Midwives Australia. They've sort of been taking a different angle, trying to kind of come up with a solution. Yeah, a little bit different that they're hoping can get legs, which I mean any solution we can take to government that will work would be great. So yeah, there's been a lot of organisations involved. I think I've covered pretty much the key.
Mel:
[41:14] I think so, too. As you released them, I was going, yep, yep, yep, yep, yep. So essentially there's a lot of consumer and professional organisations who are, collating their efforts in order to towards the same goal and that's the same thing that happened in 2009 like the Australian College of Midwives were on board this was an all-in everyone was like unified in this understanding that this has to change it has to happen and everyone came together and it was beautiful and I do think that's what will work is this unified approach I mean let's do this you know you can say that you were at the grandmother of all rallies I know.
Katelyn:
[41:54] You want to be able to look back and say, I was there. You know you do. You've got to come. It's going to be great fun.
Mel:
[42:01] It's where all the cool kids are.
Katelyn:
[42:03] That's right.
Mel:
[42:04] 100%. It's going to be a great day.
Katelyn:
[42:05] It'll go ahead. Rain, hail, or shine.
Mel:
[42:07] And it's 10.30.
Katelyn:
[42:09] Gathering. 10.30 arrivals for 11 a.m. start first features in the rally, like formal parts. So, yeah.
Mel:
[42:16] Yeah. Amazing.
Katelyn:
[42:17] Hopefully wrapping up 12 to 12.30.
Mel:
[42:19] Awesome. I mean, that's the length of a child's nap.
Katelyn:
[42:23] It's your lunch break. It's fine.
Mel:
[42:24] It's your lunch break. 24th of November, 2026. Be there by 10.30 so we can get a solid start at 11. Register for the rally in the Humanetics link below, whatever you're listening and watching on. And Home Birth Australia is the sort of communication conduit. That's where you can keep up with updates. And we will see you at the grandmother of all rallies.
Katelyn:
[42:51] Yes.
Mel:
[42:52] Yes. Thank you, Caitlin, for getting us across that issue and you're all invited. I'll be there. Caitlin will be there ready with your signs, plan your accommodation, bring your whole family. Let's go.
Katelyn:
[43:04] And go easy on us. We are a volunteer run organization. So everyone on my team is like a working mom for the most part. And so we're all doing our best. If we're a little bit slow to reply, then yeah, just go gentle.
Mel:
[43:17] Oh my gosh. I've been so impressed with how fast you guys have activated. I just cannot imagine the amount of work that's happening in the background and you all look like you're nailing it. And I just think this is the most impressive, exciting thing ever at the moment. I know it's serious because we really need a solution, but it feels exciting.
Katelyn:
[43:38] The energy is really infectious. Yeah, everyone's kind of enthusiasm. It's hard not to feel excited even though it's like, ha, ha, ha, my birth is on the line. Yeah. You're in danger. But it's exciting.
Mel:
[43:51] If we don't do it, if people don't just put a bit of energy into this and if we can combine our energy, this thing can get off the ground. I mean, women are incredible. Yeah. And you guys are doing it.
Katelyn:
[44:00] They've told us that nothing's going to change. So the only way we're going to be able to change that is to make it something that they cannot possibly ignore. So that's where we really are asking everybody to show up because that's the only way it's going to change.
Mel:
[44:13] And we were in the same situation in 2009. They were saying, we don't have a product. Sorry, we can't help you. Oh, no. And we were like, oh, my gosh, the last possible option we have is to rally. And we did. And it changed. So we're hoping for the same outcome this time.
Katelyn:
[44:29] Definitely. Yeah.
Mel:
[44:31] That has been this week's episode of the Great Birth Rebellion podcast. There's only one thing for you to do, and that is to click the link in the show notes below to register for the rally, book your accommodation, plan your travel, tell your family they're coming, and let's see what change we can make. To get access to the resources for each podcast episode, join the mailing list at melaniethemidwife.com. And to support the work of this podcast, wear The Rebellion in the form of clothing and other merch at thegreatbirthrebellion.com. Follow me, Mel, @MelanietheMidwife on socials and the show @TheGreatBirthRebellion. All the details are in the show notes.
This transcript was produced by ai technology and may contain errors.
©2026 Melanie The Midwife
