Note: This article was originally posted in our Autumn 2018 newsletter, and has not been updated.
Dear midwives, stakeholders, and members of the public,
The College has long sought to make changes to legislation and regulations to improve the effectiveness and efficiency of our programs; to respond to best practices in regulation; to remove barriers to the delivery of safe, timely, and quality midwifery care; and to improve client experience in the health care system.
To ensure we are fulfilling our mandate of protecting the public, all legislation and regulations that define and inform the practice and regulation of midwifery are under review.
One of our strategic priorities is modernizing legislation and regulations. To meet our goal, the College made a submission to the Ministry of Health and Long-Term Care in January 2018, formally requesting that midwives be given the authority to order laboratory tests and prescribe drugs according to the midwifery scope of practice rather than the current list structure.
The changes we proposed are to the Laboratories Regulation (R.R.O. 1990, Regulation 682) and the Designated Drugs Regulation (Ontario Regulation 884/93). You can read more about the submission here.
The Ministry reviewed our initial submission, requested some more information, and asked that we survey the membership. We have now responded to the Ministry’s requests. You can read our response to the Ministry’s questions here.
As you may recall, we surveyed midwives earlier this summer to inform the next stage of the College’s submission. Thanks to the 212 midwives who filled out the survey, we were able to submit additional information to the Ministry. You can click here to see the results of the survey taken by midwives.
The College also submitted changes to our Professional Misconduct Regulation and our Quality Assurance Regulation in July 2017, but we do not have any updates on these changes at this time.
We will continue to inform midwives and the public about the status of our submissions and hope to have more news to share soon.
Sincerely,
Tiffany Haidon RM