The IWK dropped its midwifery program in mid-December, leaving approximately 60 expecting mothers to rely on other delivery options. The Midwifery Coalition of Nova Scotia, an organization fronted by “consumers,” hopes to bring the traditional method back to the public by adopting midwifery as a community program.
According to organizers, the coalition’s rally, planned for today, Thursday, January 20, at Province House, aims to show minister of health, Maureen MacDonald, “how many women, and families are being negatively impacted by the lack of leadership the Department of Health has shown in regards to regulating midwifery care.”
Last year, 122 women in Nova Scotia used midwife services to deliver their children.
As of December 2010, the IWK’s midwifery program had an average of 20 to 25 women applying for midwifery care per month. Since April 2009, 483 women have applied for the services. One hundred and seventy-three of these women were accepted in the program.
The South Shore Health Authority and the Guysborough-Antigonish-Strait Health Authority are the only groups left offering midwife services in the province.
According to Gillian Batten from the IWK, the hospital continues to face staffing challenges and was forced to extend the program’s suspension.
“We know that this is a frustrating time for our clients, and we sincerely regret the impact of this service interruption on our client families and women in HRM seeking midwifery care,” writes Batten in an e-mail.
This article appears in Jan 20-26, 2011.
it always means money, the govt must be looking for an option (that is less money for a service, the plan is for normal childbirth, is there a professional group other than the midwife (MW) that can do the same at a reduced over all cost) is the consumer ready to pay for the MW? in some worlds MW is the only because they don’t have medicine – that is not the case in NS – thank goodness. peace to all care givers, as they guide natural childbirth. CB
I feel it’s lack of control and loss of business for the hospital rather then cutting costa. I had a homebirth with both my children, each birth costing less then $2000 throughout the whole duration of the pregnancy/birth and aftercare. The cost of just the labour of a baby without c-section far exceeds this price..
I have to say Chas’ comment takes the cake for ignorance of how our health care system works. Yes, thank goodness we have medecine in Nova Scotia. For the small percentage of high-risk births that happen at the IWK it is great that we have a highly specialised medical team to take care of that. But if you really want to talk cost-effectiveness, then change the practice of having 98% of our babies delivered by extremely highly paid physicians when a midwife could the work and usually better in terms of outcomes such as breastfeeding duration, patient satisfaction etc…