Education/training
Midwifery programs get funding boostIncreased funding means more midwifery students at Ryerson and two other Ontario universities over the next two years, as the province seeks to accommodate an increasing number of women who want midwife-assisted deliveries. |
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 [ 2007-10-31 ] |
Judy Rogers, director of the Midwifery Education program at Ryerson, says 40 per cent of women in the province seeking the service of a midwife aren’t getting it because there just aren’t enough of them.
Judy Rogers, director of the Midwifery Education program at Ryerson, says 40% of women in the province seeking the service of a midwife aren’t getting it because there just aren’t enough of them.
There is a three-member consortium of universities in Ontario that teaches midwifery, and all will share the $2.3 million put up by the Ministry of Health and Long Term Care.
The schools, Ryerson, McMaster in Hamilton and Sudbury’s Laurentian, all saw increased enrolment this year and will offer more places again in 2008. Although the arithmetic can be a bit confusing because of the way full- time and part-time students are counted, the net effect is that there are 27 “full-time equivalents” at Ryerson this year, 27 at McMaster and 26 at Laurentian, an increase of seven, seven and six, respectively.
Next year a further three places will be offered at Ryerson and McMaster, and Laurentian will be offering an additional four spots. Full-time tuition varies, but applicants should figure on about $5,000 a year.
Midwifery has come a long way in Ontario in a short time, as it was only recognized as a profession in the province in 1994. At that time there were only 70 midwives practising in the whole province.
Rogers says one of the reasons why there is a greater demand for midwives is a lessening of the services general practitioners provide. “The trend over the last 15 to 20 years has been that family doctors have not been inclined to deliver babies,” she observes.
The programs at all three universities are similar, with full-time students taking four years to complete their studies. More than half of those enrolled in midwifery programs across the consortium have degrees, Rogers says, and three-quarters of her Ryerson students are university graduates.
The age range at Ryerson, McMaster and Laurentian is broadly similar too. Eileen Hutton, McMaster’s director of Midwifery Education and assistant dean in the Faculty of Health Sciences, notes that since 1993 when the program began in Hamilton, her midwifery students have gotten younger. That’s because when the program began, schools followed the British Commonwealth model of enrolling women who already held nursing qualifications.
And, yes, midwives are women. Hutton says a few men have applied for a place at McMaster, but they didn’t make the cut.
As well as the increased number of spaces open to would-be midwifery students, Rogers says the funding — which only covers this year and next — will mean other changes at Ryerson. The university can hire more faculty and change its curriculum to dovetail with an expanded enrolment. What won’t change, however, are the demands placed on the students themselves.
Competition for places is fierce and students have to complete six terms of clinical placement with a qualified midwife. And forget a steady 9-to-5 schedule — babies, after all, can show up at any given time.
But schedules aside, job satisfaction must be enormous and the pay is handsome. Starting salaries for full-time midwives — self-employed contract workers for the Ministry of Health — are at least $55,000 a year.
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