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Partnership Revisited: Towards Midwifery Theory

Abstract:

Ten years ago midwives in New Zealand celebrated the formation of our own professional organisation, the New Zealand College of Midwives, and in so doing took a major step towards articulating our identity as midwives. In September of that same year the New Zealand College of Midwives launched its Journal to provide midwives with another forum for sharing knowledge and giving 'voice' to midwifery's interests. From the beginning midwives claimed 'partnership' as a central tenet in our new understanding of ourselves as a profession (Donley, 1989; Guilliland, 1989). We recognised our political partnership with women as we worked to bring about the 1990 Amendment to the Nurses Act and regain our professional autonomy. We consciously challenged traditional notions of professions as we developed a structure and constitution for the NZCOM that required consumer membership at every level. We understood, even then, that what we were doing involved a shift in power from the professional to the woman (consumer). As Karen Guilliland (1989, p.14) told us then: the only real power base we have rests with women.

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consumer input, consumer, development of New Zealand model of care, partnership, professional identity