Welcome to the new MEC blog! This blog is something that we’ve thought about and talked about for a long time so it is great to finally stop talking and actually get writing!

I am very lucky to do the job that I do (I have to remind myself of that when i get cranky about having to pack my bag yet again and spend hours in airport terminals!). But really what makes me feel so lucky is the people that I get to meet. I have worked as a remote area nurse and midwife so i know how scary it can be to have to deal with a situation that I’ve never had to face before. So I am constantly inspired by the stories I hear from participants about the places they work and how they cope, often under great stress. But I think the underlying theme of all their stories is that attitude of  ’you do what you have to’ and a genuine love of what they do.

When the MEC course started back in 2003 it was in response to a need voiced by nurses working in remote areas where they didn’t have midwives or doctors to provide the care for pregnant women. These days we are seeing an increasing demand for the MEC course in rural areas - particularly in Southern Queensland where we are providing 5 private courses this year and another 7 planned for next year. The participants from these areas are working in small rural hospitals where they may have had maternity services in the past but those have now shut down. As a consequence, there are no longer midwives working there (or the midwives are losing their skills) and the doctors often don’t have obstetric skills. But women are still presenting at these services in labour because that is what they’ve always done! So we talk about the MEC course being aimed at non-midwifery trained health professionals working in isolated practice. But you don’t have to be remote to be isolated! 

I see this blog as a way of giving remote and rural health professionals a voice to tell their stories, about the difficulties they face in managing issues around maternity care and providing safe care to women and their babies; about the programs that are working well in their area; and about the myriad number of challenging, interesting and often strange situations we find ourselves in as health care providers.

Talking about programs that are working well…..during a MEC course in Port Augusta a couple of weekends ago I met 2 wonderful Aboriginal Health Workers who were participants in the course. These women are  AMIC (Aboriginal Maternal and Infant Care) workers working in a partnership program, the Anangu Bibi Family Birthing Program, with the local midwives to provide antenatal, intrapartum and postnatal care to Aboriginal women in the area. The midwives provide the clinical knowledge and and the the AMIC workers provide the cultural knowledge and thus they learn from each other. In the women attending the program, early statistics are showing an increase in antenatal visits; increases in rates of breast feeding; and increases in numbers of babies weighing over 2.5 kg at birth. They are also seeing a drop in smoking rates. For those who are interested, read this report of the first 50 births in this program.

Enough from me for my first blog. Please get involved and feel free to comment on this or add your own story.