Midwifery services to expand in 2015

KGH and the Community Midwives of Kingston are taking another step forward in their ongoing partnership to provide services to mothers and babies in our region. Midwifery services will be expanding in Kingston in 2015 as two new Midwives have been recruited and will begin to serve the community.

KGH leaders along with our Obstetricians, General Practitioners and Midwives has been busy meeting over the last few months on a process that supports the credentialing of maternity care providers. Through this process, the team looked to balance the desire of the community as well as the educational needs of learners at KGH, who each must attend a certain number of births each year.

“This is another step in the ongoing process to ensure that all maternity care providers in Kingston are working together to best serve women in our community,” says Kelli Siegwart, Head Midwife at KGH.

The two new Midwives who will be joining the Community Midwives of Kingston and be credentialed at KGH are Teri Clarke and Kimberly Tigani. Clarke previously worked with the Community Midwives of Kingston between 2008-2011 and is now re-joining the group and Tigani is a recent graduate of Laurentian University.

“This has been an exciting time in the partnership between KGH and Midwives,” says Kellie Kitchen, Program Operational Director of the Maternal Child Program at KGH. “As with all of our maternity care providers, we have been making positive strides with our Midwife partners so that they are able to operate to their full scope of practice.”

As an example, this summer KGH became one of the few hospitals in Canada – and the first and only academic, tertiary, complex-care centre in Ontario – to provide in-hospital water births. Prior to that, in 2013, KGH updated its Epidural Protocol so that Midwives can administer epidurals without having to transfer care of their patient to a physician, ensuring the patient’s choice of care providers is continued.

“We’ve been working with our community midwives for over 20 years and this evolving relationship is a great example of patient- and family-centred care in action at KGH,” says Kitchen. “We are proving that together we are able to listen to women with low-risk pregnancies and as best we can, meet their needs so that they are able to give birth in the way they choose,” added Siegwart.

Women interested in learning more about Midwifery in Kingston can visit: www.kingstonmidwives.ca