Thank you, Mr. Speaker. Midwives in Canada are trained specialists who care for women throughout pregnancy and birth, and further, they offer aftercare to mothers and babies in the first weeks after birth. Midwives believe that pregnancies and birth are a part of a woman's natural lifecycle. Midwives recognize most pregnancies and births are healthy and normal. They are skilled to know what to do if complications or difficulties arrive. Midwives are primary health care providers who help women to have healthy pregnancies and babies. They are a fundamental part of the health care team and can refer patients to doctors, specialists, public health nurses and other health care providers, as well as to the community resources.
In Fort Smith there are two midwives providing these services. We hear nothing but rave reviews of these services in a community where resident physicians are sometimes difficult and hard to find. In Yellowknife there is one midwife and she is willing to accept the challenges of a huge demand for these services. This is an option that many women and many parents want to make, yet no additional midwives are being recruited in Yellowknife. That seems to be the fact of the plan: that there is none.
Here is one example where health care reform makes sense. It has a huge community support, it is a well-established and respected service throughout Canada and the health care system, but, to my dismay, here is an example of health reform in the NWT that no one is considering moving on.
Our one midwife in Yellowknife has to turn away many, many patients. She can only manage a small patient workload because she is only one midwife in Yellowknife. As I understand it, the department doesn't seem to be out recruiting for these types of health care professionals. On the website practicenorth.ca, which the government uses as a big recruitment tool, this website does not even mention midwives. They mention things like EMTs and paramedics, which are not even licensed in the NWT. Where is the call to arms to get more midwives in our health reform system? Many people would like to know, and certainly I would like to know, what the plan is for the Ministers meeting those objectives of providing a much better service?
In closing, expanding the Midwifery Program makes a sensible decision, an economic decision, and it's certainly one that delivers health care reform to the Northwest Territories.