Kaiwhakawhānau (midwife) and clinic director Kimai Cure, third from left, and the team at Te Whetū Oranga in Tokoroa. Photo: SUPPLIED/Te Whetū Oranga
A rural midwife in South Waikato says working as a village or a team - instead of just one-on-one with expectant mothers - helps keep the midwife, the women and their whānau safe.
Rural midwives have been finding themselves more and more stretched - on-call 24-7, dealing with serious medical incidents and taking more calls as general practices closed their books to new patients.
At Te Whetū Oranga on Tokoroa's main street, the closest hospital for residents is more than an hour's drive to Waikato Hospital in Hamilton, following the closure of several birthing units recently.
The clinic's kapa have banded together by putting all the government funding it received - from primary section 94 and Kahu Taurima funding - into a collective pool, which then funded a wrap-around team of eight across clinical, immunisations, counselling and midwifery.
Te Whatu Ora launched the Kahu Taurima in conjunction with Te Aka Whai Ora / the Māori Authority, before the authority was disestablished in late June.
Kaiwhakawhānau (midwife) and director Kimai Cure of Raukawa and Ngāti Rangi descent said with midwife shortages widespread across community providers and hospitals - and many heading to Australia to work - it was about finding the best way to support the community.
"There's lots of poverty in our area and high needs people, and not many midwives," Cure said.
"I don't know what the answer is nationally, but I know what the answer is for us here in South Waikato," she said.
"For me, it's this team approach, that we work together in the team to be able to provide really good quality care to our women and their whānau while supporting one another to get quality time on and time off."
There is a lot of poverty and not too many midwives in the area Kimai Cure delivers babies in. Photo: 123RF
She said a payment system for teams of midwives would ensure they were not overloaded with too many patients and also prevent burnout - which was particularly common among rural midwives, she said.
The team of three midwives worked in a tight unit, she said, with one more midwife expected to join soon.
"The difference I think is because we don't have a caseload to yourself, our women that we take under our care belong to every single one of us. And so it's like all eyes are on them. And I think that's what keeps me safe, but also keeps our women safe.
"It takes a special person to be a midwife out in the wop-wops, you have to have a bit of courage to do this away from your base hospital, but it can be done if you find the right people, I think."
Born in nearby Te Kaokaoroa O Patatere, Cure went to Hawke's Bay to study midwifery before returning to Tokoroa "to answer the call" to support the wider area's wāhine and whānau.
The government has promised to transform maternity care in Aotearoa - to make it more equitable, accessible, and whānau-centred.
Te Whatu Ora has just established a technical advisory group to lead the transformation, it announced on Tuesday.
By June next year, the group will have completed a draft maternity commissioning framework which will lay out expectations of its Kahu Taurima funding recipients.
Te Whatu Ora said midwife requirements will be consistent nationally, commissioned regionally and locally tailored.
The group will hold monthly workshops in the lead-up to it.
Supporting children in their first five years of life was a priority of the government's new Child and Youth Strategy for the next three years, it released last week.