Picketing, Day 1
Day 1 of picketing went well! We had good support: moms and dads, babies and kiddos. It was covered by two news stations, one of them even doing a live report. We had rain - some of the first in a long while - but we all stayed on.
We had various people honking and showing support. Someone even stopped and said they had a midwife many years ago with her two kids.
We are hopefully showing Union that their decision will be impacting many families, and that midwifery care is an option women from ALL walks of life choose and cannot be replaced by care from an OB.
Our desire would be to continue the midwifery services at Union. It has been a wonderful program that has served many families. We made the decision to picket due in part to Union not answering our more specific questions about the contract not being renewed and why. Our goal was to find out more information as to WHY the contract was not being renewed, so we could work out a solution that would keep the midwives there. It is currently not feasible to expect another private physician to pick them up immediately, to help the many patients who are left without a midwife and are currently pregnant. Union's fast decision led to these women being left without their chosen provider during their pregnancy. While having a private provider has worked in other cities, and may work in Terre Haute, it is something that takes time. Comparing Terre Haute to cities like Indianapolis and Bloomington, in terms of midwifery practices, does not make sense. We are not these cities, size wise, demographic wise, etc.
So - we will continue our campaign to support the midwives and hope that we can keep midwifery services in the Wabash Valley!
Links: There are two news stories here - make sure to click the link under the video to see both. One was our Noon Live Interview:
Our other news story:
No comments:
Post a Comment