SAMRA. What does SAMRA stand for?

“Miss I” and I. This was her first day in the world! Picture taken in 4C postnatal ward at Flinders Medical Centre.

So I am writing my first post as my little ‘Miss I’ is fighting her midday nap…I’m hoping she falls off to sleep soon. Hang on.. just got to pop the dummy back in. Ok I’m back…

As I was saying, SAMRA or the South Australian Maternity Reform Association (http://www.samra.org.au) is a group of Mum’s (consumers) that want to make midwifery lead care more accessible and to provide evidence based information to other mum’s and mum’s-to-be who want to have midwifery lead care.

I found out about this group after I had my first child and I was inspired to join after finding out about the amazing work (albeit sometimes ‘invisible’ to those outside the know) that these ladies do advocating for better, evidence-based maternity services in South Australia.

Their work has never been more relevant since the current governments, “Transforming Health” agenda that is proposing to close the Flinders Medical Centre Neonatal Intensive Care Unit (FMC NICU). Rightly so, there has been a community backlash at this proposal and for those who want to add their comments to stop this from happening, please do so before 27th February. Yes, we’ve got 9 days left to put forward our support and let our state government know what we really think about this proposal!

Here’s some links to make a difference to how our health system is run:

http://transforminghealth.sa.gov.au

https://www.facebook.com/savefmcnicu

So there it is, my first ever blog post and I wanted it to be about a topic that I was passionate about. The state of our health system in South Australia, particularly how we can use our voices to improve maternity care.

And by the way, “Miss I” is now asleep. It’s time for me to have a shower!