Health Minister David Clark may soon have another pay equity issue to decide as the midwifery service in Wanaka, and other parts of the south, lurches close to crisis.
Wanaka will be left with only one working midwife from April, and potentially none by the end of the year as the workload becomes increasingly unsustainable.
Comments reported last year from midwives throughout New Zealand pointed to a much wider problem than is being experienced in Wanaka.
Short-staffed, poor pay rates and trial by media, it is like a witch-hunt, one Auckland midwife said.
"It gets us down. Midwives are tired. But we love our jobs and we keep doing it because we value what we do and the impact we make."
Midwifery is a women’s workforce and they feel they are funded accordingly. Midwives take on a huge burden of responsibility and their pay does not reflect this.
Core midwives are being pushed to work harder as the maternity units are not funded well enough to deal with the unpredictability and often complexity of pregnancy, labour and birth and the immediate postnatal period, another says.
Most of the complaints were directed at the previous National government but the statements ring true today. Deb Harvey and Morgan Weathington have gone public in the Otago Daily Times with their concerns about the pay rates. Ms Weathington says she can no longer afford to do the job, leaving Ms Harvey the lone full-time midwife in Wanaka. She has got to the point of no longer being able to pay her bills.
The Ministry of Health salaries do not cover all of their expenses, leaving them to fund them out of their own pockets.
The Wanaka midwives expected to care for 200 women this year, compared with 180 last year.
Other women in the district are cared for throughout their pregnancies mainly by midwives based in Alexandra.
This seems an obvious case of pay discrimination because midwifery is mainly carried out by women for women.
Northern midwives say they are self-employed with none of the benefits of being self-employed, such as the ability to lift fees. There is no sick leave or bereavement leave, no holiday pay.
In real terms, incomes for this work have decreased while the requirements and responsibilities have increased in the last 15 years. Midwives are therefore leaving the profession. There is only so much people will put up with even in such a rewarding profession, before they leave, midwives say.
Dr Clark this week confirmed the Government has agreed to negotiate an agreement to extend the Care and Support Pay Equity Settlement to mental health and addiction support workers. He says it will correct a problem created by the previous government which failed to make the settlement broad enough.
The Care and Support Workers (Pay Equity) Settlement came into force last year giving 55,000 care and support workers in aged and disability residential care, and home and community support services a pay rise.
Associate Health Minister Julie Ann Genter says the Ministry of Health will commit to working with the Southern District Health Board to monitor delivery options in the Wanaka area, again blaming the previous government.
There is no primary maternity care unit in Wanaka and women who do not give birth at home units must travel to units in Alexandra, Queenstown and Dunedin. On the surface, travelling to any of those places may seem reasonable for mothers about to give birth.
However, if those mothers are experiencing birthing problems, or their babies are suffering in the birth process, a drive of an hour can seem a life-time — the difference between life and death.
This is a crucial situation for Wanaka, and the rest of the region, particularly given the huge rise in population and the influx of younger families working in construction or hospitality.
A death of a mother or her baby will be too much to bear. Dr Clark and Ms Genter need to start the process now of resolving what has become a very personal issue for a lot of women.
