Jul 6, 2026 · 17 min · 11 segments
A large Australian study comparing public and private maternity care seemed to show better outcomes for mothers and babies in private obstetric-led care, including lower rates of stillbirth, NICU…
Anne DohertyHost
Talk to me about the Australian healthcare system compared to the Irish healthcare system, because that matters.
It does matter, and it's really interesting because the two broad Australian maternity care pathways, as they describe it in the paper, is either this or that.
... which the authors describe as mostly fragmented care involving public midwives, obstetricians, and GPs, and birthing in a public hospital.
Private obstetric-led care is a personally selected named obstetrician, some midwifery involvement around delivery, and birth is in a private hospital, so separate, so they're not in the public-
Obviously, the women that avail of private obstetric healthcare may be at baseline quite different to mothers that avail of public healthcare at some level.
Yeah, so we need to look at the populations between the two groups, but also if we're actually gonna discuss this relative to our system, we need to look at the population within our system groups as well.
So if we start off with their study, and then at each point compare it to the Irish system and the differences in it to see is it actually really applicable?
Talk to me about the Australian healthcare system compared to the Irish healthcare system, because that matters.
It does matter, and it's really interesting because the two broad Australian maternity care pathways, as they describe it in the paper, is either this or that.
... which the authors describe as mostly fragmented care involving public midwives, obstetricians, and GPs, and birthing in a public hospital.
Private obstetric-led care is a personally selected named obstetrician, some midwifery involvement around delivery, and birth is in a private hospital, so separate, so they're not in the public-
Obviously, the women that avail of private obstetric healthcare may be at baseline quite different to mothers that avail of public healthcare at some level.
Yeah, so we need to look at the populations between the two groups, but also if we're actually gonna discuss this relative to our system, we need to look at the population within our system groups as well.
So if we start off with their study, and then at each point compare it to the Irish system and the differences in it to see is it actually really applicable?
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