Last week a few women and kids went to the provincial legislature to hear the opposition health critic put a couple of questions to the Health Minister. Lindsey and I had met with the health critic back in October and we had planned to have the midwifery issue brought up in November, during a week which turned out to be when the provincial government announced their plan to sell New Brunswick's electricity company to Quebec. This then became the biggest story of the year/decade/ however long- it is still ongoing and still the biggest news story a few months later- so needless to say the midwifery issue was not going to get the attention we would have wanted. So fast forward to last week and you find 7 women and 6 small children and babies sitting in the legislature during question time.
To cut a long story short, as soon as we walked out of the legislature the press were all over us. Almost everyone spoke to one journalist or another and two Birth Matters members were particularly good in front of TV cameras and microphones. I am shy of microphones and cameras, always have been, but I did talk to a newspaper reporter and the following day a story in one of our local daily papers had a photo of me, Brendan and Tadhg and an article. Not at all a well written article but it got the general gist across.
To simplify a very complicated situation, the government is making slow progress towards implementing midwifery. The Midwifery Council has been formed (though despite being told that one of our nominees would be appointed, none were) and the Health Minister exaggerated (lied) about the progress. There's too much to write about here. I just wanted to record where we are right now and how I'm involved.
Hopefully Birth Matters will stay involved and will be able to influence the implementation if need be. We want to make sure that the midwifery model of care is fully respected and that they don't make some of the mistakes that other provinces have made.
Round about the same time, Caitlin, Paddy, Jo and Cash the dog were in the paper in Glasgow. They were in a small protest in a wee lane in Glasgow's West End that is threatened by a big development plan for blocks of flats. They were pictured front and centre with placards saying "leave our lane alane".
Oh, here, I've found the photos.
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