Thursday, April 10, 2008

Midwives in the news again

The national shortage of midwives has hit the news again.

I wonder what's going to be done about it?

4 comments:

Futuristics said...

NICE Blog :)

Sarah Stewart said...

Thank you, Futuristics

Anonymous said...

I'm curious about the wait times applicants have for programs in NZ? Here in Canada, there are less than ten sites to train at. The three major university programs have more applicants than spots and the interview process is very expensive (not including paying them to even take your application). For many women, it will involve leaving their home, their Province, their family and friends (we all know how important support is in learning!).
I know for a fact that financially we could not relocate to any of the sites, neither could we shoulder the cost of childcare and a secondary car... it just isn't something I will ever be able to do... should have followed that dream earlier, but I was turned away and the cost of applying again kept me from it.
Anyway...
I wonder about your online learning and if it will help some women who aren't able to relocate for schooling in the 'old world' sense.
I have to say I know a lot of women in Canada who have registered through online coursework at accredited university/college's in the United States and STILL have to pay more for the final stamp of approval through PLEA's in their own Provinces. It just seems like such a kick in the teeth. We need more midwives. Here they are, broke and to the end of their savings to get there... now lets make you pay more just to get a piece of paper to say 'sure you can practice here'. It is hard enough as it is isn't it?
I keep myself from clicking on the information about the online program on your sidebar. Too dangerous to dream some days! ;-)
Speaking of NZ programs... have you ever been by our own little Canadian who was studying in your beautiful country? http://durafemina.blogspot.com/
She is back here in Canada now with her beautiful daughter. I really hope she will be practising soon.

apologies on the novel. Just got me thinking... and the children are driving me mad... and well... getting out and doing something with my life sounds pretty darn good right about now!
*I also go by mm on blogger with the three littles on my picture.

Sarah Stewart said...

Hi hbacmama - I've just realised what 'hbac' means! home birth after cesarean - is that right?

It is fairly 'easy' time wise to get into our midwifery programs here because we are short of midwives and students. The thing that holds some people up is that they do not have the pre-requisites, so they have to some educational updating first.

We have tried to make the application process as easy as possible for women but at the same time maintain a standard for entry. It is a demanding program so we do not want to set people up to fail by accepting them when clearly they are not going to make it in the program.

Our new flexible delivery program is hopefully going to attract women like yourself, who cannot move out of their community to the main campus. We want to keep women in their communities, especially rural communities. This is why I am doing all this investigation of technology to see what works well to keep networks going between students when they do not meet up regularly in the classroom setting.

I appreciate what you say about the barriers we put up to stop midwives working, which is ridiculous considering the global shortage. That is the advantage of being a small country and population-we have a consistent national process so there is none of that problem of re-accreditation.

We do have a regular trickle of Canadians coming over to do midwifery but it is very expensive for them as international students. I wonder if there is anyway we could manage this ie get you to do all your theory at home and then only have to spend 2 years here. Ummm! Have a think about it and see what options we could look at for international students.