Education minister looks at expanding midwife programs

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This article was published 01/05/2017 (3109 days ago), so information in it may no longer be current.

Midwives may be about to play a greater role in Manitoba’s health-care system — and there will likely be more of them employed, says Education Minister Ian Wishart.

Wishart told his estimates hearings last week he expects there will be additional cohorts as more new students enrol in university midwifery programs.

But in a highly unusual move, Wishart strayed onto Health Minister Kelvin Goertzen’s turf by saying he expects the health-care system would be using more midwives and they will have a larger role in the future.

His prediction of growth comes at the same time the opposition NDP and public-sector labour leaders are warning of significant cuts coming to the health-care system.

“There is a need for them,” Wishart told NDP education critic Wab Kinew. “I think the department of health is looking to expand their scope of practice from what it is at the moment, and I believe that will make them far more valuable in the system. I think that’s probably important now and into the future.”

The health minister was in his riding on constituency matters Monday and could not comment, Goertzen’s press secretary said.

However, Manitoba Health said in a prepared statement that, “Generally, midwives in Manitoba are employed by the regional health authorities, and it is up to the regions to determine how best to utilize midwives to address the health-care needs of Manitoba families while ensuring a sustainable health system.

“Our government recognizes the important role that midwives play in health care. Midwives are an important part of interdisciplinary team, and are associated with positive outcomes for maternal and infant health. Regulatory changes have been made to expand the list of laboratory tests, diagnostic tests and medications that can be ordered or prescribed by midwives, as well as expand the list of minor surgical and invasive procedures a midwife may perform. This will include a required educational component.”

Wishart believes midwives will expand their roles in rural and remote communities.

“I suspect that in the northern parts of the province that it’ll be a much larger scope that they want to see in play,” he said, adding there are currently 13 midwifery students at the University of Manitoba.

“We’re committed to following this cohort through and we are committed to, once we have established what the target might be with the department of health, to putting additional programs in place.”

Wishart said his department will work closely with the department of health, as Manitoba’s largest employer of midwives, to ensure there are jobs waiting for graduates. One of the goals of post-secondary education is trying to match training programs with labour-market needs, he pointed out.

University midwifery has been troubled and exceptionally expensive since the former NDP government announced in 2004 that midwifery would be a flagship degree program at University College of the North.

Launched in 2006, the program left the UCN campus in The Pas in 2009 and was moved first to the University of Winnipeg, and then to the U of M. The NDP spent more than $8 million to so far produce only nine graduates in more than a decade. Most years there was no intake of new students, and one year there was no one enrolled.

The NDP had directed that a new class begin studies in 2015 at the U of M, and promised an additional $844,000 a year to expand the program. That promise disappeared with last year’s election, and Wishart said there would be no expansion or new classes until midwifery was running properly.

Through an arrangement brokered by the province, the 13 midwifery students are now enrolled in a McMaster University program the Ontario school is teaching at the U of M at $441,000 a year less than the NDP had spent annually when UCN ran the program, Wishart told Kinew.

nick.martin@freepress.mb.ca