About
Leonie Hewitt is a Lecturer at Flinders University, commencing in 2024 after submitting her PhD. She brings extensive clinical experience as a midwife providing midwifery-led continuity of care across New Zealand and Australia.
Her educational qualifications include:
- PhD (2024) from Western Sydney University
- Master of Research (2017) from Western Sydney University
- Screening, Diagnostics, Pharmacology and Prescribing for Midwives (2015) from Griffith University
- Master of Midwifery (2004) from University of Technology Sydney
Her research focuses on optimizing midwifery group practice models through service sustainability frameworks, with particular emphasis on community-based antenatal/postnatal continuity of care systems and free-standing birth center operations. She investigates structural and operational factors affecting midwifery service delivery in both public and private healthcare settings.
She has held significant clinical leadership roles including Clinical Midwife Consultant at Westmead Hospital Sydney for five years, and was instrumental in establishing Australia's first free-standing birth center at Ryde, NSW (where she worked for 12 years), plus community-based midwifery models in Sydney and a private practice in Wellington, NZ.
