I don't think change is coming...

Some thoughts on exhausting activism.

Sorry folks, no Friday Night Chats today. I am feeling pretty low so I thought I’d talk about why…

Yesterday, I stood on Parliament steps again and talked about health care for mothers and birthing people and their babies again.

Again.

As I sat down to write what I’d say on those steps - I pulled up a folder on my laptop that said “Maternity Care NZ”. It held all of the past speeches and posts and articles I’ve written about maternity care.

I could have just used the one from 2019. Or 2017. Or 2016.

They were all the same.

Speaking on Parliament steps July 2017.

I have been writing about parenting for seven years. And for seven years our maternity care sector has been in crisis. It has been under-resourced and under-funded and under-staffed.

And when I stood up on Parliament steps and started to speak I just felt so fucking angry you know? I felt so frustrated to see the same people fighting. The same politicians standing in a line.

One of the petitions presented had 55,000 signatures and yet the Minister for Health (who seems AWOL at all times when it comes to issues relating to children and women) Andrew Little didn’t bother showing up. Associate Health Minister Ayesha Verall didn’t show up. I mean apparently Kelvin Davis is the minister for children but I guess that doesn’t include babies because he wasn’t there.

I just felt so fucking over it you know?

Women and pregnant people keep being put last. It doesn’t matter what government it is. It doesn’t matter who the minister is. Whether they’re left or right. Nothing changes.

I want to know why our midwives have not been treated with the respect they deserve and have not been supporting enough to do their jobs. STILL. Why are they still underpaid?

Suicide is the leading cause of maternal death in Aotearoa. So why is funding and support for maternal mental health teams not increasing? Where is it?

As a country, we have significantly worse mental health outcomes for new parents than the UK and Australia. One in five mothers face mental distress in pregnancy – I was one of those mothers and I’m only here today due to support from family. Nobody should feel alone prior to birth, during birth, or after birth. When babies are born, mothers are born too – and we must show up for them.

The Plunket helpline received more calls about maternal mental health so far this year than all of last year.

Māori women and babies face ongoing systemic inequality and a lack of access to healthcare. And this isn’t new. It’s been happening forever.

It has been revealed that women are less likely to make ACC claims and more likely to be declined when they do. They then receive far less compensation than men.

Our DHBs are stretched to the absolute limit and our most vulnerable people, at a time in their lives when they’re most vulnerable, are falling through the cracks that are getting bigger and bigger due to government inaction. Our own DHB Capital and Coast needs 60 full-time midwifery staff, 17 positions are vacant - nearly a third of the workforce. According to a midwife, not a single application was made for eight new funded graduate positions.

Over the past five years it has become even harder for women - especially Māori and Pasifika women - to get an ACC claim accepted.

On the steps of Parliament I said some pointless waffly shit about how ‘It’s well-past time! and ‘We must demand action and it must be now!’ and ‘We cannot lose one more mother. We cannot lose one more baby!’ but it’s all kind of pointless yeah?

Because we will keep losing mothers and babies.

And I will still be writing about these issues in another seven years. I will still be reading coroner reports of deaths of pregnant people and their babies and wishing something had changed.

And whatever government we have? They still won’t prioritise our babies. They still won’t prioritise the people who birth our babies.

I said to my husband: “Liz Craig (She’s the Health Select Committee Chair) was there and she said they were putting folic acid into bread which I mean great, we should do that, but that has absolutely fucking nothing to do with our maternity care system being in crisis right now.”

And he said to me - Don’t write that because you don’t want to piss her off in case she doesn’t push Pharmac for funding of CGMs. And I thought - she wouldn’t do that. But then who the fuck knows how any one politician decides what issue to do something about and what issue to ignore?

I want to be hopeful and optimistic.

Yesterday, Eddie was asked by a school friend’s mum “what happens next?” After Eddie had spoken at Select Committee on funding continuous glucose monitors.

He said “Probably nothing.”

When asked why he thought that he said: “I thought last time after I met the second prime minister (Grant Robertson) that he would change it because he became my friend but he didn’t. And then we did TV but they didn’t change it. So I don’t think they’ll change it”.

I didn’t know how to respond to that. Neither did the other mum. I don’t know how we encourage our kids to use their voice for change when it feels like change never comes…

Then he said “but we are going to keep trying no matter what!” And he skipped ahead of us, running toward something better than what we have now with a light I hope is never extinguished.