Petition to Allow Private Midwives to be Eligible for Professional Indemnity Insurance or to Be Exempt from Being Required to Enroll in PI

Home birth is a natural right for women, therefore, they should be able to access home birth midwives who have met the criteria for PI insurance. Birth should not be controlled by bureaucracy.

This ruling will ensure home birth isn't an option in my area, as we only have one eligible midwife. This will force me to go to our local hospital, which has been rated as one of the worst in this country.... Talk about taking away a woman's rights and her birthing confidence!!!

Private / Community Midwives deserve to be able to access private indemnity insurance. They pay thousands of dollars for insurance already that doesnt even cover them for home birth. It is unfair to the Midwives because it reduces what they can earn annually , and it is unfair to the mothers because if their Midwives could get insurance the mothers would have access to the Medicare rebate for birth.

Having experienced both a hospital birth and a home birth, I can't recommend the latter enough. We NEED private midwives be able to continue attending home births!

This is crucial in giving women choice around place of birth and needs to continue.

This issue is vital to our right for freedom and respect!

Women must have autonomy over their choices and their bodies. Not allowing private midwives to be eligable for PI insurance will result in more free-births by women who would rather have a private midwife in attendance.

Why are we hindering a wonderful birthing opportunity for low-risk women, bubs and families alike, when countries like England actually ENCOURAGE women to homebirth?

Having had both a hospital and a homebirth I wish to add my name in support of increasing the birth choices available to women.

Choice of birth options is essential

Choice is important.

Women need the choice of homebirth! Our body, our baby, our choice!

If midwives are not available - I would free birth at home without a medical team/expert. Hospitals are not good, comfortable, caring, patient places for birth. Hospitals are rushed, impatient, harsh and impersonal.

I support the right to CHOOSE!

Home birth midwives are the norm in holland and the U.K. Let's progress forward and give birthing the options it deserves in our diverse country.

A woman has the right to choose where she will feel more comfortable and able in her birth. There is absolutely no statistical reason for this to change.

With the level of care my wife, child and I received after transferring to hospital, I shudder to think of the outcome we would have had without our private midwife. So on the ball, she picked up on so many things that the hospital had either missed or shown completely no interest in looking in to. It's absolute madness that others will not have this level of care even as an option.

Women deserve the right to birth where they want, not based on how much money they have.

This just cannot happen. A Dutch midwife

I have had one baby in hospital and four at home. The midwives who attended me at home were my friends. I trusted them. I listened to, and followed their advice - because when I had questions, they gave me answers and took me seriously. We had a relationship. I even got to talk gardening with one, and gave her seeds from my plants. I would consider going to a birth centre if that was available, or have hospital midwives come to me. But that is not available where I live. I am still planning on another child, God willing. I do not want to go to hospital where the poor midwives were su rushed off their feet that I couldn't be more than a number to them, even if they wanted to. There was no genuine trust or resect, because there was no relationship. The midwives I saw in my antenatal visits were nice, but they were only random people I saw once, and there was no genuine trust and respect there too. Without that trust and respect, birth is much harder.