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Winnipeg Free Press - PRINT EDITION

Extra funding from province boosts midwifery program

By: Staff Writer

Posted: 11/5/2009 1:00 AM | Comments: 0 (including replies)

EXTRA government funding of $400,000 a year will let the University College of the North expand its midwifery training program to Winnipeg and other communities in southern Manitoba.

Advanced Education Minister Diane McGifford said the additional funds will almost double the number of midwives trained under the UCN program, which has offered the program since 2006. There were nine positions originally and the new funding adds eight more.

Wednesday's funding announcement comes less than a month after the Free Press reported the midwifery program was floundering because only a third of the original nine students are left, and that they were having trouble finding enough babies to deliver to meet their graduation requirements. To graduate and practise in the province, midwives need to help out with at least 60 births. None of the three remaining students have anywhere near that number.

Of the original nine students, four dropped out because of family or financial pressures and two took leaves.

The Doer government first announced plans five years ago to earmark $1.6 million in federal health dollars to create the province's only midwifery program, an aboriginal one run by UCN, to improve health care in the north.

The four-year program officially started teaching students in 2006 at two sites -- Norway House and The Pas. In several press releases touting the new program, the province said as many as 10 students would register in the first year, with five new students every year after that.

Midwives care for women throughout pregnancy and childbirth. More than 80 per cent of babies world-wide are born with the help of midwives. The Manitoba government declared midwifery an independent, regulated health care service in 1997. The Midwifery Act was proclaimed in June 2000.

McGifford said the additional funding will see students deliver babies in Winnipeg and other communities in southern Manitoba. The next training class starts in 2010.

Rebecca Wood, president of the Manitoba Association of Midwives, said the increased training also means more Manitobans will have access to midwifery services. With the extra funding, the province will spend $859,000 a year to support the midwifery program.

The province currently has 45 funded midwife positions today. However, there are only about 39 practising midwives.

Still, Health Minister Theresa Oswald said Manitoba, with Ontario and British Columbia, has the highest number of midwives per capita in Canada.

Republished from the Winnipeg Free Press print edition November 5, 2009 A8

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