« More on Italian childbirth practises | Main | The inherent sexuality in childbirth »

A last word on Italy

A last comment on my recent weekend in Italy. My program was sponsored by MIPA (Movimento Internazionale Parto Attivo - International Movement for Active Birth) who offer a whole range of programs and services for midwives and women in Italy. They are about to celebrate their 20 th year of operation, and they have been central to the raising of consciousness about humanized birth, water birth and home birth in Italy. Piera Maghella, the founder of MIPA, is a passionate woman who has lead many campaigns for better birth services and I enjoyed working with her on this workshop project.

She explained that recent changes announced by the Italian Government will have far reaching effects for the education of health professionals. From now on, all educational and in-service programs for health workers are to be provided by staff within the hospitals themselves - no outside consultants, educationalists or experts are to be used unless they can provide programs at a cheaper cost to the system than internally funded programs. This is a disastrous move and one that is likely to lead to the perpetuation of hospital practises and increased rigidity within hospital services. Such an approach risks the institutionalisation of practises that may be outdated and inappropriate. It is vital that hospital based workers be exposed to fresh and new ideas by outside speakers, leaders in their fields and experts with specialised knowledge. The reasoning of the Italian Government is to save money by not having to pay realistic rates for quality education, but what about the cost to the standards of medical and nursing care?

MIPA has also been hit by new regulations that require organisations to separate their commercial and educational functions: if a group offers training it cannot sell products and vice versa. This will hit many groups hard because selling appropriate products and services that back educational programs is often vital to these groups financial survival. Piera expects that her group will have to undergo some major restructuring in the coming months and it is to be hoped that they can continue their important work in a financial viable way. Italy certainly needs people with a passion for birth reform to keep prodding at its medicalised birth systems.

Posted by andrea at October 06, 2004 02:06 AM

Post a comment