Midwife: Fuel hikes a ‘kick in the teeth’
Record high petrol prices and the prospect of a further 11.5c rise per litre in July is a “kick in the teeth” for one Auckland midwife.
Sandy Grey says midwives are given the same amount of funding per client regardless of whether they ended up needing to visit a new mum three times or 30.
It’s already a struggle to get that base pay to cover her $100-a-week petrol costs.
91-octane fuel rose to $2.30 a litre at some petrol stations yesterday and there have been predictions prices could continue to rise thanks to a depreciating kiwi dollar and the rising price of crude oil globally.
“The rising petrol prices feels like just another kick in the teeth for me and another thing like, ‘Oh my God, what is going to happen to this service?’ ”
Grey visits each new mum on average seven to 10 times in the six weeks she is paid to deliver postnatal services, and sometimes much more.
“There’s no distinction.” Grey, who has been a midwife since the mid-1980s, remembers midwives were allowed to claim for mileage until the late 1990s.
“Which is how most other businesses operate, don’t they? They accept there’s travel costs involved, not just your time. “Midwives don’t get that.” Plumbers and builders — anyone who travels to people’s homes to deliver their service — charge for travel, she says.
“Why does the Government think it’s okay not to pay us a travel fee?”
With the Budget not delivering the pay increase she had hoped for, rising travel costs and the prospect of the regional fuel tax have her feeling dejected about the future.
The bump in pay for jobs involving rural clients is good but doesn’t acknowledge the fact terrible Auckland traffic can increase petrol use just as much, Grey says.
“You’re stop-start, stop-start, stop-start — you know it uses more petrol.”