Hi Lacnetters!

I recently read a post that discussed the success or failure of private
practice in our field. I have had a private practice in Montreal for five
years now. I am now well known and respected by my peers and by health
professionals, but my private practice is not as busy as it once was!

The first reason for this is that in Quebec, mothers are not willing to "pay
for services" as in the States. We have Medicare, and mothers simply prefer
to consult a doctor or nurse free of charge instead of calling upon us and
"pay" for the consultation. Second, we have serious competition...we are
only three certified LCs in private practice in the Montreal Area, but many
nurses also present themselves as LCs even though they are not certified.
Another thing that makes this profession not quite what we can "live from"
is that our economy is not allowing the employment of certified LCs to be
simply an LC in a hospital. What I mean is that the hospitals will call upon
a nurse clinician who has many responsabilities (pediatrics, obstetrics,
postpartum...etc) to write the exam so that they can say they have an LC on
staff, but they will not hire a certified LC to work exclusively with
mothers and babies. The nurse clinician usually ends up being overworked and
BF usually takes the back seat!!! The only hospital who had one, laid her
off recently...

As of now I am surviving in this field of work, but it is not my
consultations who bring home "the bacon". I make my living by giving
conferences, workshops and mostly by doing translations from English to
French. I have also done some technical revisions for UNICEF and other
organizations. I do find it difficult and sometimes quite discouraging as I
am a divorced mother of three children whose father refuses to give child
support, and in Quebec a man with his own business can easily get away with
it!!!

I hope this is not to discouraging for someone who is thinking of becoming a
certified LC, but I do get a lot of reward from the mothers I help and that
is why I am still around!!!
Dany Gauthier IBCLC
[log in to unmask]
Tel: 514-923-3792
Fax:514-923-3802