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A dire midwifery shortage in the country's busiest maternity unit is forcing its health board to pay midwives up to $700 for a casual fill-in shift just to ensure safe staffing levels.
The lack of up to 48 midwives at Counties Manukau District Health Board is so acute it has been dubbed a "timebomb".
"Counties Manukau maternity are sitting on a timebomb. It's a disaster waiting to happen and it's going to happen," said Lynda Williams, co-ordinator of the Maternity Services Consumer Council.
"They are in the most unbelievable crisis-mode that you can imagine."
"This would come out if there was a mishap and I feel there is going to be a mishap."
Ms Williams said the hospital had repeatedly closed its delivery suite to women in labour, sending them to Auckland City and North Shore hospitals - but Counties Manukau chief medical officer Dr Don Mackie denies this is happening.
"The delivery suite is always open but certainly we do from time to time transfer women to Auckland. It's usually not because of the midwifery situation ... it's actually when the neonatal care unit is full."
Up to 20 per cent of the health board's 160 midwifery positions are vacant - and this was on top of the area's shortage of independent midwives.
Meanwhile, births in Counties Manukau have jumped 25 per cent over six years. Last year, there were more than 8000 deliveries at its maternity facilities.
"We're the busiest delivery suite in Australasia, and our volumes of deliveries are growing very fast - we're growing at about 6 per cent per annum," said Dr Mackie.
"With our volumes increasing at that sort of rate, and while there is a global shortage of midwives available to fill the jobs, we're really just playing a continual game of catch-up to keep up with ourselves."
The gaps in staffing are filled either by getting the hospital's own staff midwives to do extra shifts or overtime, or through a casual fill-in midwife - who can also happen to have a full-time position at any of the other district health boards.
Dr Mackie said a casual fill-in would get around $260 per shift, but confirmed that a payment of $700 was made in one instance.
He said it was a weekend and a "special situation" where the casual staffer was needed to bring numbers up to safe staffing levels.
"It was particularly tight and that's what the market took to get somebody to come and do the shift."
The board was recruiting internationally, and working with the Auckland University of Technology's midwifery school to ease the shortage.
Women with low risk of complications were being encouraged to use community units in Botany, Papakura and Pukekohe, said Dr Mackie.
But Lynda Williams said the board needed to look closely at why they were not attracting or retaining staff.
"Middlemore needs to step up to the plate and have a look at what is going on there with staffing issues.
"This is not good news for South Auckland women. Counties Manukau serves a very vulnerable population of women."
- additional reporting Martin Johnston
Deal for Filipino nurses
A Philippine Government agency is about to sign a contract for direct supply of nurses to the Counties Manukau District Health Board, a Manila newspaper reports.
And the deal has potential to be rolled over into a Government-to-Government arrangement for Filipino nurses to be hired for many of the nation's district health boards, the Inquirer reported yesterday.
New Zealand hospitals have been struggling to retain staff, with unions representing senior doctors, junior doctors and nurses all warning of a crisis unfolding.
At Wellington's beleaguered Capital and Coast District Health Board, one in four nurses has quit in the past year.
But nursing recruitment and shortages - particularly in specialist fields - have become a national issue, and the secretary of the Philippine Department of Labour and Employment in Manila, Arturo Brion, reported the Counties Manukau District Health Board was planning to recruit Filipino nurses.
He said that this might evolve into a Government-to-Government deal.
All Filipino nurses seeking employment in New Zealand would be registered with the Philippine Overseas Employment Administration and those who are selected would be deployed to Counties Manukau hospitals.
It was reported in Manila in September that Counties Manukau representatives were interviewing applicants for jobs in late September.
Mr Brion said the board would reimburse the nurses for their flights, reducing the "mobilisation cost" for each nurse to 8000 pesos ($253) each.
A spokesman for Counties Manukau was not available for comment last night.
- NZPA
