Newly announced midwifery funding is a good start, says Alberta Association of Midwives president Nicole Matheson, but it will still leave midwives without enough work and a wait list more than 1,000 names long.
Following the NDP’s provincial budget announcement Thursday afternoon, Health Minister Sarah Hoffman released details on additional midwifery funding that would see an incremental increase of $1.8 million dollars, for a total investment of $11 million, over the next three years.
The government already increased funding by $1.8 million in September bringing the new baseline of midwife-supported births to 2,774.
“With the way funding works right now that’s an increase of about 400 courses of care per year – the same as what we announced last year,” Hoffman told reporters Thursday. “But I also know that the Alberta Association of Midwives and AHS are very keen to work out a new funding formula, so if we can stretch that funding to fund even more than 400 births that certainly is a priority for our government.”
The new funding would bring that number up to just under 4,000 births after the third year.
The Alberta Association of Midwives was calling for funding to support 1,000 new births this year alone in order to tackle the 1,900-deep wait list and ensure that midwives are working at full-capacity.
Before this budget announcement, midwives were operating at 56 per cent of their collective capacity. With the addition of nine to 12 new grads each year and increasing demand, this number is likely to remain close to the same.
At the very least the additional funding should prevent the closure of newly established practices and help midwifery students stay in the province after graduation, said Matheson.
Last month, the newly established St. Albert Community Midwives announced that it was in danger of closing because it had not received enough courses of care to ensure the clinic was viable. Other clinics across the province expressed the same concern, decrying Alberta Health Services’ decision to allocate the same number of courses of care to established practices, leaving less for recently opened clinics that were meant to meet the collective goal of expanding service to rural and remote areas.
Criticized over the lack of funding and inadequate allocation process, Hoffman promised good news was on the horizon with the upcoming budget and repeated her government’s support for midwifery as a cost-effective service.
The additional funding does not resolve allocation issues between Alberta Health Services and the Alberta Association of Midwives. It also does not seem to satisfy the St. Albert Community Midwives concerns about the future of their business.
On the clinic’s Facebook page, midwife Jennifer Thomson wrote the following message to supporters and clients: “There is still uncertainty about how many (courses of care) our practice will receive and if it will be enough. We should know more in two weeks. Please continue to have your voices heard in regards to the need for uncapped funding for midwifery and change of funding model.”
In response to this post, Heidi Taphorn responded that if evenly spread out this would equate to one or two additional clients per month for the St. Albert clinic.
“Hardly a difference,” she wrote. “So frustrated and disappointed that thousands of Alberta moms and many St. Albert moms will not be able to access midwifery.”
