The Australian Nursing and Midwifery Federation (Tasmanian Branch) is calling for babies to be counted in staffing ratios to avoid ‘dangerous understaffing’ that puts both mothers and babies at risk.

Launching a new campaign this week to count babies as a separate patient to their parent, which would bring Tasmania in line with other states like Queensland, Branch Secretary Emily Shepherd said the union believes every baby born should be counted in midwifery workloads.

“At the moment, the ratio at best is often one midwife to six mothers in a postnatal maternity unit. If four of those mothers have had their babies, the ratio blows out to 1:10 or more if the mother has had a multiple birth i.e. twins – which is obviously unsafe,” she said.

“Currently, only individual tasks are allocated midwifery time e.g. taking a baby’s blood glucose level or delivering a naso-gastric feed under the existing Birthrate Plus Model. However, when you Count The Babies, you ensure safe staffing, better care of mother and baby and improved outcomes for Tasmanian families.”

Ms Shepherd said ANMF (Tasmanian Branch) is seeking parity with Queensland – where babies are now counted in staffing ratios.

Nurses will wear Count The Babies badges and hand out information to mothers and families during the campaign. Midwives statewide will also write accounts of their daily workloads, which will also be lodged as an incident report due to workloads and distributed to colleagues and the media.