Waikato University course to tackle shortage of midwives
The owner of a major Hamilton birthing centre who gets at least half a dozen requests a day for a midwife is embracing a new Waikato University programme aimed at tackling the chronic shortage.
The programme is the latest in a strong catalogue of health options coming online at the university, including nursing, pharmacy and general practice with the institution at the forefront of tackling major health needs for the country and region.
Te Whatu Ora’s Health Workforce plan 2023-2024 reported it would take another 250 midwives to fill shortage of midwives by 2032.
Tracy Aubin, a midwife herself and owner of Waterford Birthing Centre, said the facility receives at least six phone calls a day from people asking for an available midwife, with daily emails on top of that.
But there’s also other organisations around the region facing the same strretched resource.
University of Waikato Te Huataki Wairoa School of Health Dean Jo Lane said the new programme that was initiated by local midwives identifying the critical midwifery shortage.
“They said we’re delighted to see what’s happened with the new nursing programme at the university, and will you consider developing a programme in midwifery?”
Lane said it’s part of the university’s ongoing commitment to meeting the health workforce needs in the wider Waikato region.
“So we’ve got nursing underway, and we’ve had our first graduates and were able to celebrate that a couple of weeks ago. We’ve got a new pharmacy programme which will start next year. And then of course, the graduate entry medical school due to start in a couple of years time.”
The university began the process to offer midwifery in November 2022. Lane said the graduate-entry midwifery programme will be a first in Aotearoa, but they are an increasingly common model of education.
“Internationally, graduate-entry programmes have been successfully delivered for decades for a wide range of health professions, including midwifery. As a country, we already have graduate-entry programmes in nursing and physiotherapy, and next year the University of Waikato expects to be delivering New Zealand’s first graduate-entry pharmacy programme.”
He said the programme will be available to registered health practitioners, for example registered nurses, physios, pharmacists, dietitians, which Lane said ensures incoming students have a good base of clinical skills to bring into the programme. Midwifery is an occupation which is common for people to move into later in their working life, and with that in mind the programme will offer a new model in which will be scheduled around school terms rather than the university trimester.
“It recognises that many students that will want to take this programme may have childcare responsibilities. And so it’s a little bit easier to not have things clashing with school holidays.”
Aubin acknowledges the decline in midwives has been happening for some time even before Covid-19 affected the sector.
“I think Australia is taking a lot of our staff, a lot of midwives have gone over there.”
She said New Zealand can’t compete with wages that our trans-Tasman neighbours are offering.
It also isn’t helped by the fact it takes four years to qualify as a midwife even if you are coming from a nursing background.
“There’s no way, unless this programme comes about, that health professionals can go and do the training in a shorter time frame.
“I’ve got a daughter that's a registered nurse, she’s done six years of nursing. If she wants to be a midwife, she's got to go back to Wintec and do another four years, that is a lot, you might as well go and train to be a doctor.”
Aubin said having a midwife is important for all those involved, it’s more than just delivering a baby.
“It’s that continuity of care, getting to know your midwife, (and for) the midwife, knowing the woman. I have delivered six babies for one family, so you become part of the family.