"Royal Women's Hospital Victoria"

I had a wonderful experience with the Royal Women's Hospital and it's great to be able to credit the staff, that I came into contact with, who were so kind, caring and professional.

I had a baby at the Women's and was lucky enough to be a part of the Cosmos program. At the time the program was in the last stages of a trial, and it has now become a standard part of the Royal Women's public health services. The program assigns a midwife to each patient to see them through the pregnancy and birth of their child. The aim of the program is to assist women in having healthy births through continuity of care and availability of one midwife (of a team of three) for one-to-one care during pregnancy and labour. Women in the program are able to call their midwife when they go into labour, no matter the hour, and their midwives are able to help them by phone, assisting them to stay at home longer rather than go into hospital too early which can lengthen or even stop labour. When patients are ready to go to hospital, their midwives meet them there and deliver the baby.

This continuity of care gave me peace of mind about the birth, because throughout the pregnancy I developed a great relationship and sense of trust with my midwife. She supported all of my and my partner's wishes for the birth plan and did not scoff at it (as many other health professionals do, because so much can happen that's not planned for), rather encouraged us to use a plan and suggested books for us to read that suited our philosophies.

Her encouragement and support meant a great deal to my partner and I, and she helped us immeasurably with the birth. We spoke to her at 12am and 3am in the morning, and she met us at the Women's at 5am when we went in.

The dedication of these midwives is remarkable. They make themselves available at such ungodly hours and our midwife had such a calm, professional and kind manner, she made us feel completely at ease throughout the whole process. We can't thank her or the other wonderful staff we saw at The Royal Women's Hospital enough!