Collaborative Maternity Care in Rural Environments: 

An Investigation of Regulary and Legislative Barriers

March 2007 - March 2009

Invitational Rural Midwifery Symposium, October 24, 2008

Research Team

Principal Investigators:  Jude Kornelsen and Stefan Grzybowski

Support Team:  Melanie MacDonald, Shelagh Levangie

Funding Agencies

This project is one of six in the 5-year grant "Appropriate Access to Maternity Services for Rural Parturient Women" funded by the Canadian Institutes of Health Research and Child and Family Research Institute

Communities

Trail

Smithers

Campbell River

Creston

Project Summary

The goal of this research is to identify barriers to multidisciplinary models of maternity care within a rural environment and the changes that need to occur to facilitate such models.  Specfic objectives include investigating:

1. Legislative and regulatory barriers;
2. Legal and financial barriers;and
3. Professional (ideological) barriers.

Project Updates

This project has completed the data collection stage for all four communities. Early findings were presented to rural midwives and decision makers at two Invitational Rural Midwifery Symposia in Vancouver, BC, June 19-20 and October 23-24. The proceedings for these symposia can be found on the Resources page. We are currently in the process of writing final reports.

The report for our research in Trail can be found on the Resources page.