At the 2009 Peace Conference in Canada, the Dalai Lama said ‘The world will be saved by the Western Woman’.

In towns and suburbs around Australia, we're seeing our birth services being saved by women. We have world class policies and research for providing the highest standard of maternity care, but health services are slow to implement them.

Birth services are being closed in regional and rural areas, or not delivering continuity of care, the safest form of care.

So, when faced with the removal of these birth choices, these women step from their lives as mothers of young children, right out into the arena of activism, often for the first time in their lives.

Drafting letters, forming community groups, organising rallies, painting placards, attending meetings with health service officials, and more, is asked of them to bring about change. It's never easy, but without their efforts, change for the better would simply never happen.

The women we hear from in this episode are:
- Rachel Bryant behind the campaign that saved the Murwillumbah Birth Centre
- Samantha Wibberley, part of the group who is working to save the midwifery group practice (MGP, ie continuity of care programme) at Tamworth Hospital
- Helena Mooney, leading the community action to ensure woman-centred care like MGP is available on the Northern Beaches of Sydney

National health and quality standard, Standard 2: Partnering with Consumers now obliges all health services to engage with their communities in the planning, implementation and review of their service.

We also hear from Melissa Fox, CEO of Health Consumers Queensland on consumer engagement, why it's important and what can be achieved with it.

Consumer groups like Maternity Choices Australia are available to support anyone wanting to see better birth choices in their region.

With sincere thanks to all our contributors in this episode.

References:
Standard 2: Partnering with Consumers:
https://www.safetyandquality.gov.au/wp-content/uploads/2012/10/Standard2_Oct_2012_WEB.pdf

41% of maternity services closed from 1992-2011: Kildea, S, et al https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/25845486

Websites:
www.maternitychoices.org.au
www.hcq.org.au

Facebook groups:
Friends of Murwillumbah Birth Centre
Friends of Tamworth Maternity Services
Friends of NB Maternity Services

Aired on 99.9 BayFm on Monday 15 May 2017.
Presented by Sally Cusack