Families protest cutbacks to breastfeeding program

Hey there, time traveller!
This article was published 01/08/2017 (3000 days ago), so information in it may no longer be current.

WHEN Robyn Liddle became pregnant, she assumed breastfeeding her child would be simple.

“You think, ‘oh I can do it, it’s easy, I’ll just put her on there and you’re good to go,’” she said, juggling her six-week-old daughter outside the Manitoba legislature. The reality did not line up.

“There are so many techniques,” said Liddle, who’s had two appointments with a lactation consultant so far and a third scheduled this week.

“There’s pain that comes,” she said of breastfeeding

“It’s crazy, there’s so much to learn.”

Liddle was among a crowd of more than 150 people outside the legislature on Tuesday to protest the Winnipeg Regional Health Authority’s recent cuts to the lactation consultation program at the Health Sciences Centre (HSC).

Most people had babies in their arms or toddlers at their feet and many spoke passionately about what NDP MLA Nahanni Fontaine has repeatedly characterized as an “attack on women’s reproductive health.”

“Hey Pallister do you know how these things work?” read one sign with an arrow pointing at a pair of breasts

“Because I didn’t.”

The overriding concern is what ripple effects the cuts might have. How many babies who aren’t feeding well and whose parents don’t know any better won’t thrive and will instead wind up needing more serious — and perhaps more costly — care?

Despite axing the two consultant jobs, the WRHA’s director of patient services for women’s health, Lynda Tjaden, said the authority isn’t attempting to shift away from breastfeeding.

“Our region remains committed,” she said.

“The hospital has a very important role to play from the time the baby is born to when they go home (at which point) that role is picked up by midwives, physicians in the community, family and friends and public health.”

The WRHA currently runs individual and group clinics seven days per week at spots throughout the city, including in Fort Garry, St. Boniface, River East, and St. James. That’s in addition to the three lactation consultants at St. Boniface whose jobs are not being axed. At HSC, nurses will be expected to pick up slack with the support of a new clinical nurse specialist and nurse educator.

The change will save the WRHA $90,000 toward the $83 million savings the authority has been directed to find by the province, Tjaden said, since the two lactation consultants were working full-time and three-quarter time while the educator and clinical nurse specialist will both only work half-time.

Asked why the WRHA doesn’t split the remaining lactation consultants between St. Boniface and the HSC in order to ensure access at both facilities, Tjaden said it has to do with the way the cuts have come about.

Each hospital’s management team ultimately made their own calls based on their individual facility’s needs.

In St. Boniface’s case, Tjaden said they chose to maintain their lactation consultant program, while HSC is “actually changing the model of service” and training nurses who’ve already developed daily relationships with patients.

Those rallied outside the legislature on Tuesday aren’t convinced.

“Nurses already have a lot on their plate,” said Whitney Smith, who needed a lactation consultant when she had her first child, but not her second.

“Yes, they have a vast amount of knowledge, but I find that lactation consulting really requires that one-on-one touch and sometimes multiple visits and I’m not sure that that’s going to be a deliverable item in the future with these cuts.”

jane.gerster@freepress.mb.ca