Midwives up and down the country have mixed views on whether Covid-19 vaccine mandate should stay or go for the profession.
The College of Midwives wrote to officials in May asking for a review of the evidence behind the Covid-19 vaccine mandate. (File image) Photo: 2021 Getty Images
Midwives have told RNZ they are being forced to turn pregnant people, who are in tears, away amid workforce shortages.
The College of Midwives (NZCM) has been calling for the government to reconsider the evidence it is using to enforce a Covid-19 vaccine mandate in the profession but those it represents have mixed views on it.
The College wrote to the health minister and Covid-19 response minister in May asking for a review of the evidence behind the vaccine mandate.
NZCM chief executive Alison Eddy said while they did not have data on how many midwives had left their jobs over the vaccine mandate, it had caused "an exacerbation of existing workforce shortages".
It was particularly impacting regional areas like Coromandel.
Midwife Annelies said seven out of 12 of her colleagues in Thames-Coromandel walked away from their jobs over the vaccine mandate.
While she understood why removing mandates would make some uneasy, she said her former colleagues needed to be able to come back.
"I am now the only community midwife based in Thames. It's not how our system was set up to function so it doesn't function," Annelies said.
"The risk of having no midwife is greater than the risk of having an unvaccinated midwife and that's the reality we are facing in our region."
Susie Fothersgill, who is a midwife in the Hutt Valley, did not think many in her area had left because the mandate but was also in favour of letting those workers come back.
"I completley support unvaccinated midwives returning to work. A lot of them are our local bread-and-butter midwives who were trained in New Zealand, they know the systems really well. Having one or two midwives return to LMC [lead maternity care] makes a big difference," Fothersgill said.
A midwife, who works in rural Northland and did not want to be named, was not sure it was a good idea.
"I'm on the fence with this," she said
"I'm probably against it because we work with vulnerable people. I think it's safety for us as well as everybody we are looking after," the midwife said.
Another midwife in Central Otago said the vaccine mandate was not behind workforce shortages, rather a chronic lack of funding and tough working conditions were the key issues.
"This sector of healthcare, I feel, has been chronically neglected and that's why we are where we are. We are not here suddenly. It's not because of midwives not being immunised," she said.
National Party Covid-19 response spokesperson Chris Bishop reiterated calls for the vaccine mandate for health care workers to be removed.
"We should essentially get rid of the mandates in our public health system for nurses and midwives. We've got a desperate shortage of both," Bishop said
Covid-19 Response Minister Ayesha Verrall's office said a Ministry of Health review into vaccine mandates for health workers was expected to be with ministers for consideration in the coming weeks.