FIJI is facing a persistent shortage of about 100 midwives per year in its maternal healthcare service.
In an interview yesterday, chief nursing and midwifery officer Colleen Wilson revealed that there are just over 200 midwives working in public health facilities across Fiji.
She said this number was significantly below the estimated requirement of more than 300 midwives to adequately serve Fiji’s population.
“We should have, off the cuff, maybe 300-plus positions, but we have not reached the 300 mark,” Ms Wilson said.
“There are trainings which are ongoing that’s been supported by DFAT (Department of Foreign Affairs and Trade), WHO (World Health Organisation), and the Ministry of Health.
“But while we are training some we are also losing some so we may not reach that number because of the attrition of nurses and midwives.”
She said that within a year, the two institutions where midwives are trained can only take 20 midwives each.
“We only train 40 midwives in a year, because there are 20 that goes to Sangam College of Nursing and 20 that sits here at Fiji National University.
“The only thing that we would need from our partners is to be able to get funding to sponsor nurses for training.
“And while we can do that from the ministry, while we are lobbying for that, we are hoping that there will be room in the institutions to accommodate a bigger number of students that we want to send in for midwifery training.”
To mitigate the shortage, the Ministry of Health has re-employed retired midwives.
“We also have retired midwives who are still being re-employed by the government and we are grateful to the government of the day for that provision.”