Sarah and others
Something about my previous post seems to have been misunderstood. I apologize
if I offended anyone. Please let me clarify.
<<Personally I  am both appalled and insulted. >> Whew!! I hope it wasn't
something that I wrote that insulted YOU (and our other Leaders).
I am very upset by the caviler attitude of this (normally unsupportive of
Bfing by the way) head nurse. It's like lactation support "is no big deal" or
something. The  head nurse's comment about LLL "doing it," and implying that
they have no training; fried my tail. I honestly think she believes that LLL
is just a group of nice women who talk about breastfeeding. She has no
understanding of the lengthy process of education involved for a Leader.
Of course this would be a moot point if the nurses weren't so overloaded that
they find helping with breastfeeding  is too time consuming; but that's
another problem all together.
<<Is your supervisor>>
Fortunately it's not my supervisor, it's  the hospital OB supervisor. The
hospital and clinic sides of my company are separate.
<< planning to take  an inexperienced, uneducated (in regards to lactation)
person, send her  to a 3 day course and say " bang you are now a lactation
specialist!".>>

Yep, that's how we heard it. There is no talk of sending this person to ANY
training. We got the impression that they are going to hire someone off the
street. <<sigh>> My department head says we have to attack this from a legal
standpoint--ie the possibility that my institution is setting itself up for a
lawsuit (imagine how bad a law suit would be for lactation support people in
general).
<< It certainly shows us how cost containment can be absurd and how
undervalued the benefits of lactation are in our society.>>
Exactly
This head nurse wants to hire someone with no training other than basic nurses
aide (which by the way is a minimum wage job). There is no plan to train this
person, probably because they would have to pay her more. <double sigh> I
think our LC's will have a real ethical dilemma if they want us to train this
person. (Are we risking our jobs if we say no?)
We want to show this nurse that her plan is flawed before she can get it off
the ground. She must be made to understand that LLL has requirements for
Leadership just as there are requirements for IBCLC's . LLLI and the IBCLE
have worked hard to set standards and it bothers me that someone can take this
attitude that anyone can "do lactation."  It would be great if it were so, but
unfortunately it isn't.
Being a lactation consultant/La Leche League Leader isn't something you can
just decide to do and go for it. Education and experience are a vital part of
our foundation. I see this idea as a dangerous situation, bypassing that
foundation and leading to all sorts of problems. If my company does it, what
will keep others from following suit?
My thanks to those of you who have written me privately with those great web
sites.
Again my apologies for any misunderstanding.
Marie Davis, RN, IBCLC