Stay tuned for the next action on midwifery, says Meryl Moulton, president of the Alberta Association of Midwives.
She said Alberta is the second-last province in Canada, ahead only of Prince Edward Island, and the last in the West to look at paying midwives. Following May 5 rallies in Calgary, Edmonton and Red Deer, there was a lot of discussion about the subject in the Alberta legislature.
“Both opposition parties had the minister of health in the hot seat,” Moulton said.
The minister, Ron Liepert, said women should not have to pay for this service and that the public should wait to hear more, she added.
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“We’re guardedly optimistic.”
She said the province had given midwives admitting privileges in hospitals and offered practice insurance.
“So they’ve done everything they can except pay for us.”
Moulton said the main argument to support midwives is that not enough doctors want to deliver babies. Most prefer to be higher paid specialists and live in cities.
She said even if the government increased training spaces for doctors, it takes more than double the time for them to be ready versus the four year degree course to train a midwife. As well, foreign-trained midwives could work in Canada after a one-year upgrading course.
Moulton wasn’t concerned about the impact on midwifery from Alberta’s recent announcement to collapse the nine regional health boards into one “superboard.” She said it might help ensure that midwife services are offered in all parts of the province rather than taking a piecemeal approach.
As of Sept. 1, 2007, Alberta had 31 registered midwives and six student midwives.
Saskatchewan promised in March it would fund midwifery under public health care. Only two health regions have announced they will hire them this year: Saskatoon and Regina-Qu’Appelle. The provincial midwife association website lists four active midwives and three students.
Manitoba is also moving to pay its 33 midwives.
Midwives have been publicly funded in British Columbia since January 1998. B.C. had 102 midwives practising in 2007 who delivered 6.6 percent of the babies born in the province.
