Babies need to be counted.

Whilst NSW Labor's proposal for shift-by-shift ratios is great news--I am interested to find out exactly what is being promised to those of us who work in the state's maternity wards where babies are yet to be configured in the numbers ratio.

When a patient's call buzzer is activated, it needs to be answered as quickly as possible. Because choking, sepsis, acute pain, haemorrhage and other life-threatening situations can and do occur at any given moment --and the midwife, regardless of her allocated patient load, must also manage this.

If ratios are recognised as being important in ED and on surgical, medical, renal and paediatric wards, then babies need to be counted as individual patients, wherever they are within the hospital setting.

The workload expected of us is unreasonable, unsafe and far from user-friendly. This is a life or death situation. Action is needed now--we don't have another minute to waste. Arinna Earley