NZ short on midwives

Midwives are needed nationwide. File photo / NZ Herald

Health boards are looking to overseas hospitals to fight a serious nationwide midwife shortage that has left many pregnant mothers struggling to find care.

A strategy group is working hard on a list of initiatives, including poaching overseas midwives, especially from Britain, to address the crisis.

According to a Midwifery Workforce Analysis report released in July to district health boards, the country is short of about 150 midwives nationally. This is not as bad as six months ago, when health boards were 240 midwives down, but the deficit is expected to blow out again by summer.

Counties Manukau has the worst shortage with 29 full-time and 20 casual vacancies. Auckland is down 28 midwives, Waitemata is down 20 and Northland needs eight. The only district that does not have a shortage is the West Coast.

The report predicts the country will be short of 220 midwives this year and 269 midwives by 2026. A big issue is the rapidly ageing workforce population - midwives are on average aged 47 years - as well as midwives emigrating overseas or quitting the profession, or younger ones taking time out for their own maternity leave.

This has coincided with an upturn in birth rates from 54,000 babies in 2002 to 64,100 in 2008.

According to Statistics New Zealand, the forecast birth rates are to remain around the 60,000 mark for the next few years and then drop slightly to about 59,000 a year until at least 2030.

The average age of birthing mothers has also increased which means more complex births.

Jim Green, chief executive of the Gisborne-based Tairawhiti District Health Board, who is heading the strategy group trying to tackle the issue, says the group has been making "pleasing progress", but much more was still to be done.

Some recommendations include:

- Introducing virtual classrooms via the internet in the North Island. This has been introduced into some parts of the South Island recently and means midwifery students can live in their provincial or rural communities and train in the profession. This might help address the rural shortage of midwives.

- Creating midwifery "assistants" who could be trained in half the time of actual midwives.

- Recruiting overseas midwives, particularly at British workfairs, for a more effective and collaborative effort.