Midwives’ pay ‘just an insult’
Christchurch midwife Anna Lakeman is striking because her teenage son earns more on a fishing boat than she does ‘‘resuscitating babies and saving their lives’’.
More than 1100 hospital midwives around the country began two weeks of rolling strikes on Thursday in an effort to gain a better pay offer by district health boards (DHBs).
Lakeman, 46, joined about 50 midwives and supporters in a rally opposite Christchurch Women’s Hospital yesterday morning. She said midwives were passionate about supporting women and their babies but deserved to have their skills and education recognised in their pay. ‘‘I’m a second year out midwife and earning $25 an hour ... and literally resuscitating babies and saving their lives.’’
Lakeman, who re-trained as a midwife over five years after a career as an early childhood teacher, said her 19-year-old son earned more than her working on a fishing boat.
‘‘People say we do it for the love, not the money, but we still have to pay our bills. When you are living week to week, it just feels like an insult.’’
Because midwives are not able to work fulltime in their first year after graduating, they can only earn a maximum of $39,599 – which equates to $23 an hour.
Midwifery Employee Representation and Advisory Services (MERAS) industrial coleader Jill Ovens attended the Christchurch rally and said numbers were relatively small because midwives were still providing life-preserving services during the twice daily, two-hour long strikes. Some of the 540 strike notices issued nationally had been withdrawn due to low staffing numbers and an inability to ensure the safety of women and babies. Life-preserving services included caring for all women admitted to a maternity unit for the duration of labour and until two hours after birth.
Ovens said during the twohour strike period midwives would not be doing things like refilling water jugs or re-stocking nappies but health care assistants had been rostered on to provide this support.
Midwives were offered the same pay deal negotiated by the New Zealand Nurses Organisation (NZNO) for nurses but rejected it. Ovens said midwives had been calling for a separate and higher pay scale ‘‘to reflect their skills and responsibilities as health professionals’’, for more than 28 years.
MERAS proposed lifting the starting salary for midwives from $49,450 to $56,788, which was equivalent to the second step of the nurses’ pay scale.
It said DHBs paid new graduate nurses for their first year of clinical experience but midwives, who study for four years, were expected to self-fund theirs.
This cost midwives up to $20,000 more in student fees and their starting pay was a step behind nurses, despite having the same level of experience.
‘‘This is patently unfair,’’ Ovens said.
The DHBs say their offer would give midwives a 9 per cent increase in pay over the next 18 months, two pay step increases and a lump sum payment.
DHBs spokesman Jim Green said many parts of the MERAS proposal ‘‘would go well outside the funding DHBs have to settle these negotiations’’.
He urged MERAS ‘‘to come back to talks’’.