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Ngā Maia Māori Midwives Aotearoa chief executive Jean Te Huia is welcoming a scheme to get more Māori and Pasifika midwives.
The $6 million Te Ara o Hine programme was launched yesterday at Auckland University of Technology, which is one of the five participating midwifery education providers.
Associate Health Minister Dr Ayesha Verrall said New Zealand has relied for too long on recruiting midwives from overseas, and Covid-19 has highlighted the importance of developing our own workforce.
Ms Te Huia says it’s a chance to address the mismatch in which Maori are almost a quarter of the birthing population but under 10 per cent of midwives.
"It's an opportunity for whanau hapu Iwi to become involved, to identity the mareikura in their whanau, to get them into the programme. The programme will support them, have mentoring, support them financially to complete the programme. It's just going to be an awesome programme," she says.
Jean Te Huia says her roopu is preparing a database of midwives who can mentor tauira.
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