VIDEO cameras are being banned in birthing suites by Victorian hospitals worried about legal repercussions, staff privacy and unnecessary distractions.
Obstetrics accounted for more compensation payouts than any other field of medicine.
via Dads banned from filming birth in new privacy clamp down by hospitals | News.com.au.
This just flabbergasts and pisses me off.. I find it hard to believe that a rule like this has any reason apart from preventing video evidence from being created for those compensation payouts.
Claims general manager Lisa Clarke said medico-legal concerns over footage being used as evidence if something went wrong during labour or delivery played only a small part in it giving this advice.
Most events were well documented through medical records, she said.
“If management of the birth is sub-optimal, this is likely to be apparent without the need for a video recording to confirm events,” she said.
Yeah, the records may indicate if something has gone awry – but medical records are technical documents, not emotional ones. A video is an emotional document which has greater potential to inspire sympathy in a jury which is deliberating about if and what compensation should be given.
Bigger concerns included the potential for filming to interfere with the birth, or distract staff, which may have an adverse effect on the care provided, she said.
I completely reject the claim that filming the birth may distract staff and have an adverse effect on the birth outcome. Any professional working in that environment should be able to tune out distractions and focus on what they are doing. If they are unable to concentrate fully on their patient despite what else is going on around them, then they shouldn’t be there in the first place.
And this comment really annoyed me:
Get Real Posted at 12:52 AM Today
Umm it is NOT a woman’s right to have the birth filmed, it’s a PRIVILEGE!! If a hospital has a ban on it then so be it!
This is so wrong. YES, it is a woman’s right to do WHATEVER SHE LIKES while she is giving birth. Making your own choices is most definitely a RIGHT, not a privilege. And unless hospitals can provide a legitimate reason why filming a birth is dangerous, they really don’t have any place to be telling women they can’t do it. The woman is the consumer, paying for a service from the hospital. They are there to serve, assist and advise her – not to dictate and instruct.
But further to that: even if a medical or birth professional does give advice to a woman about what they think is the best thing to do in a particular situation (or any health professional to any patient), the woman/patient is not obligated to follow that advice. It is our basic human right to make our own choices, whether that is having someone film us giving birth or making the choice to not have/discontinue treatment for something like cancer. It is our right to make those choices even if the professionals advising against them don’t like the probable outcome.