A study comparing outcomes for public and private hospital births was published in the Medical Journal of Australia in February.
It attracted dramatic headlines. “Public hospital births double risk for mother and baby, says report,” said the Age. “Babies die less often in private hospitals,” said the Australian. “Private hospital births safer than public: study,” from ABC News Online.
If you need reminding of the perils of relying on headlines, have a read of this indepth analysis of the study at Inside Story. It’s by Hannah Dahlen, the assoc prof of midwifery at UWS, and Sally Tracy, prof for women’s health, nursing and midwifery at the Royal Hospital for Women and UTS.
The story is not nearly as clearcut as the headlines – or the study’s authors – suggest. Dahlen and Tracy also make some points that should be of interest to the MJA’s editors and reviewers.
One Comment
I am patiently waiting for the moderators of that website to moderate, but I do agree that comparing public Vs private is fraught with difficulties. You are using two different populations so I wonder how effectively they have allowed for this. And I also wonder what is the point of comparing public Vs private unless it has some useful conclusion, which must be more than “private is better”. Surely the question they should be asking is “why are the outomes of private hospitals better than public” so that whatever the reasons are they can be addressd. Otherwise to me it’s a pointless study.