Mums hurt, babies at risk in midwife crisis
BABIES are at risk of brain damage and mothers are sustaining lifelong permanent injuries because of a critical nationwide shortage of midwives.
More than 2000 jobs are currently vacant across public and private hospitals, leaving remaining staff working obscene hours – sometimes double shifts, spanning 18 hours – to plug gaps.
The situation is so dire, stressed midwives are quitting the profession entirely.
A News Corp investigation has also found: women are often giving birth on their own; newborns are going unfed for up to 12 hours; the nurse-topatient ratio can be as high as one to 16 in extreme cases; and, some mothers are discharged after only 43 hours to free up beds.
Pregnant women who require emergency birth inductions are having them delayed because there are not enough beds in maternity wards.
Most midwives are working regular overtime and 18-hour shifts are common. They are leaving because of the constant draining overtime, poor pay and the strain of too few midwives and too many patients on a ward. They can work with less stress in academia and in community mother and baby centres.
Nationally the number of practising midwives plunged by 542 in 2021 at the same time as the number of older mothers increased, caesarean rates grew and more women developed gestational diabetes.
Job search website SEEK has more than 2300 vacancies for midwives being advertised.
Sydney midwife Zoe Edwards, who recently resigned from her job, said: “We love our job, a lot of us are so passionate about it, but providing the care that we wanted to give is not possible in our jobs at the moment.” The private sector is also affected. Sydney’s Hurstville Private Hospital has been trying to hire midwives for more than a year.
“Despite our best efforts, and the offer of enticing benefits including above-award wages, retention bonuses, relocation fees, and the opportunity to experience the full range of maternity services in a wellresourced setting, we’re still struggling to find the right candidates,” chief executive Lloyd Adams said.
A spokeswoman for Health Minister Greg Hunt said last month Medicare items were expanded to enable professional midwives to provide highquality maternity care plans to manage the care for expectant mothers throughout their pregnancy journey.
Money was also allocated to support the development of collaborative care models for maternity services in rural and regional areas and fund a senior midwifery adviser.
Labor leader Anthony Albanese last week launched a new national nurse and midwife health phone service to be provide advice, treatment support and information for nurses and midwives who were stressed, exhausted or anxious, or were struggling with mental health issues.
While NSW has ratios of one nurse to four patients in its general hospital wards, there are no such ratios for maternity wards and babies are not counted as patients.
Almost every health district in the state has large numbers of unfilled vacancies for midwives.
“There is a crisis in midwifery and the NSW Ministry of Health seem incapable of admitting how bad it has become,” NSW Nurses and Midwives’ Association general secretary Brett Holmes said.
The union wants a ratio of one midwife to three patients to be introduced into post-natal wards and it wants babies counted as patients.
A NSW Health spokeswoman said: “Despite a declining birthrate, between 2012 and 2021, the nursing and midwifery workforce in NSW increased by 9599 full-time equivalent staff, or 23 per cent, to 51,794 FT.
“The NSW government is also investing in a further 5000 nurses and midwives from 2019-22 under a record $2.8bn boost to frontline staff and remains on track to meet this commitment.”