I'm not even sure what the official stance of the Public Health Authority on circumcision. It could be this was something she felt motivated to do herself. For me it was a very important part of my care, because someone actually took some time to explain the procedure to me. She said "if you feel at all undecided, it's probably best to wait. It's not something that can be undone."
My daughter was born in BC. I had the same wonderful, personal home visits as I did with my son. Again, predictably my mood dropped with my hormones at about the 5th day after childbirth, and I was glad to have the advice and attention when I was at risk for PPD. Again I would have been considered outside of their new low-income criteria. However, the fact remains, we don't actually always know when we need help most, or what sort of help we might need. New motherhood is a very vulnerable time and we all... ALL of us need all the support we can get.
If you wish to write to your Health Minister, Health Critic and Premier the contact information is as follows:
minister of health micheal de jong:
mike.dejong.mla@leg.bc.ca
NDP health critic:
Mike.Farnworth.MLA@leg.bc.ca
premier clark:
premier@gov.bc.ca
If, like many of us, you are a very busy mother you might want to copy and paste the letter below instead of writing your own. (Thank you Taai Taai for the letter!)
It has recently come to my attention that the Health Ministry is cutting back routine home visits from Public Health Nurses to new mothers.
Routine nursing visits in the early post-partum are useful for detecting health problems in post-partum women and their infants. New mothers may not know enough to ask for a home visit. It is also concerning that Public Health Nurses will be pulled from existing programs to the new program for "at-risk" mothers under the age of 25. While I appreciate the effort to offer more extensive help to young mothers, it should not be at the expense of a functional program that provides a needed service. Furthermore, the age limit is arbitrary.
It is difficult to assess risk when you are not routinely screening new mothers through home visits after birth. I think this is a public health disaster in the making. Public health nurses help new mothers establish breast-feeding, catch health problems that new mothers may not be able to identify, and are a valuable and essential service.
I think this is a short-sighted plan that will end up costing the government more money in the long run, as mothers who fall through the cracks develop health problems in themselves or their infants that require more care at a later intervention date. I hope that you will reconsider this decision.
Sincerely,
your name
your address