Victoria's Chief Midwife Elisa McDonald (centre) with ANMF Vic Branch Secretary Maddy Harradence (second from right), Assistant Secretary Nicole Allan (second from left) and NPSNs Kate and Bonnie from Werribee Mercy. Photo: Christopher Hopkins
The Allan Government has made two important maternity announcements that will strengthen the midwifery profession and the delivery of maternity services to mothers and their babies.
Victoria’s first Chief Midwife named
ANMF congratulates former Western Health midwife and Safer Care Victoria senior advisor Elisa McDonald who has been announced as Victoria’s first Chief Midwife.
Ms McDonald is a true advocate for the midwifery profession, for women and birthing people and for equitable access to maternity, sexual and reproductive health care.
ANMF represents almost 8000 midwives and has long advocated for this position, which will ensure a midwifery voice is involved in the highest level of clinical governance decision-making and decisions that affect the welfare of women and families.
Ms McDonald will be responsible for leading the work to implement the Victorian Maternity Taskforce recommendations to address workforce challenges and improve maternity service delivery.
Victoria’s first Chief Midwife Elisa McDonald. Photo: Christopher Hopkins
ANMF (Vic Branch) Assistant Secretary Nicole Allan, who is a midwife and a nurse, said: ‘This is such an important announcement in recognition of the profession of midwifery. We’re so pleased to now have a chief midwife sitting at the table whenever maternity or midwifery are discussed.’
ANMF is looking forward to working with Ms McDonald to drive reform and strengthen maternity care for our members, who want to work in a system that provides access, choice and flexibility to them and the families in their care.
Expanding the neonatal postnatal support nurse pilot to grow the pathways to midwifery studies
Premier Jacinta Allan and Health Minister Harriet Shing also announced an $8.1 million expansion of the neonatal postnatal support nurse pilot into the Royal Women’s Hospital, Monash Medical Centre (Clayton) and Mercy Hospital for Women (Heidelberg).
Ms Allan said the investment into strengthening Victoria’s maternity workforce and services was in response to listening to midwives, nurses and ANMF leadership.
The pilot has been running at University Hospital Geelong, Werribee Mercy Hospital and Western Health Joan Kirner Women’s and Children’s Hospital Sunshine since late 2024.
There are currently 32 neonatal postnatal support nurses in Victoria, which will increase to 69 with the expansion into three more hospitals. Recruitment is expected to start in August.
Ms Shing said: ‘We want to make sure our workers are supported, are recruited and are retained to do their lifesaving work every single day.’
ANMF called for the new role in postnatal wards to recognise the workload of newborns requiring additional care and to help keep more newborns with additional needs and their mothers together instead of sending unwell neonates to the special care nursery.
ANMF (Vic Branch) Secretary Maddy Harradence said: ‘We know that this dedicated resource for babies in postnatal is making a difference, not just to women and parents on the ward, but to the midwives who tell us that they actually could not imagine their shifts at the moment without these resources.
‘This means midwives and nurses will be working together to provide care and to keep more mums and babies together and that means better health outcomes and a better start to life,’ she said.
The new role was also designed as a workforce initiative to increase the number of midwives in Victoria by providing registered nurses, who had limited exposure to maternity settings, with an opportunity to work on a postnatal ward before committing to postgraduate midwifery studies.
The pilot has already also seen a number of experienced nurses decide to take on the postgraduate employment model, which is a faster way to increase the midwifery workforce.
Full implementation of ratio improvements
By 1 July these six hospitals will also see the full implementation of improved night shift postnatal ratios from 1:6 to 1:4, plus at least one neonatal postnatal support nurse on every shift.
