Midwife faces nonhospital work ban

A POPULAR Gold Coast midwife has been slapped with a ban from working in non-hospital settings by the healthcare watchdog, and ordered to be supervised while helping deliver babies in hospitals.

Stephanie Kathleen Susan Oliver (right), 52, of Southport, has been ordered to apply for approval to keep practising at her current health service by giving proof her director of nursing is aware of the conditions imposed on her registration as a midwife to the Office of the Health Ombudsman.

The Health Ombudsman stated she may only practise as a midwife in hospitals but did not give further reasons for why it has taken action against Mrs Oliver.

The immediate registration action imposed on Mrs Oliver was announced on December 15 and was to continue until either the ombudsman removed the conditions imposed or the Queensland Civil and Administrative Tribunal set the decision aside, the Health Ombudsman said in the statement on its website.

The investigation is understood to be in its early stages.

UK-born Mrs Oliver is a former director of and shareholder in Gold Coast Midwives Pty Ltd, company records show.

She previously worked as a Medicare-eligible private practice midwife for My Midwives Gold Coast.

She currently offers private antenatal classes, hypnobirthing and optimal maternal positioning through the Positive Birth Initiative, run out of the Shoes Off Living Pilates Studio in Nerang, her website states.

She has been registered as a midwife in Australia since 2002 to provide pregnancy, labour, birth and post-natal care, and qualified at Wolverhamtpon University in the UK in 1995.

She gradated with a nursing certificate from the United Midlands College in the UK in 1991.

When contacted for comment, Mrs Oliver told the Bulletin: “I’ve got nothing to say.”