Strengthening maternal care
A midwifery partnership between Australia and PNG. With both Australia and Papua New Guinea facing a shortage of midwives, the Rotary Club of Morialta, SA, and the Rotary Club of Port Moresby, PNG, in partnership with the PNG Midwifery Society and the Australian College of Midwives, have developed a buddy leadership program.
WORDS Sarah Atkins. President, No Borders Rotaract.
According to the Australian Nursing and Midwifery Board, Australia’s midwife workforce is “in crisis”. As of late last year, one in three midwives is in imminent danger of leaving the profession, exacerbating what is already a nationwide shortage. Meanwhile, Australia’s close neighbour Papua New Guinea has one of the highest rates of preventable maternal and neonatal deaths in the world.
Globally, around 830 women and 7,000 newborns, mainly in low- and middle-income countries, die each day because of complications related to pregnancy and childbirth. These deaths are mostly preventable – and midwives are key to preventing them.
According to the World Health Organisation, increasing the number of midwives worldwide by just 10 per cent could save up to 1.3 million lives each year.
Funded by a global grant, the Papua New Guinea Midwifery Leadership Buddy Project takes a new, shared learning approach to addressing child and maternal health. The initiative sends Australian midwives over the Torres Strait to co-learn with the midwives of Papua New Guinea, a concept that takes advantage of the human element of midwifery to combat workforce isolation and burnout.
The exchange between the midwives is reciprocal and prioritises learning from one another’s strengths,” says project organiser Judith Brown, a retired midwife and past president of the Rotary Club of Morialta, SA. “The primary focus is just trying to help women have a voice in both countries.”
Project co-organiser Dr Helen Hall, who is a professor in midwifery at Federal University, notes that the sharing of skills leads to a unique pool of knowledge between the two parties.
“They’re coming in as partners. It becomes evident very quickly that the PNG midwives have incredible skills,” she emphasises. “Between the two of them, they both bring something to the party.”
Australian midwives have benefitted from a competitive, consistently resourced and longer degree program that has instilled confidence in clinical skills, but they are also at risk of heightened anxiety, stress and low rates of satisfaction. This new partnership program has led to what Dr Hall calls “a real shift”.
The buddy program helps build confidence in the PNG midwives, and in the Australian midwives, to actually act in their patch to do something to bring about positive change.”
After the project is completed in 2026, a total of 86 midwives from Australia and Papua New Guinea will have gone through the program. The only cost for participants is their time. All travel, accommodation and food is funded by Rotary (for both Australian and PNG midwives). Following a six-day workshop in Port Moresby, midwives are buddied up in threes and spend the next 12 months in consistent communication with each other, as well as meeting their partners in the field when able. They also visit Port Moresby General Hospital to meet with pregnant and postpartum mothers and babies, spending time with past graduates of the program to demonstrate their projects and successes beyond the training.
“Some of the remarks we’ve had from the PNG midwives, is that before they came to the workshop, before they had their buddy from Australia, they were very quiet,” says Judith. “After taking part in the workshop they now stand up and question everything.”
