Transcript
One of two Pasifika reps on the National NZ College of Midwives, Trish Taihia, has been a midwife for a quarter of a century now.
The Samoan is in charge of high risk ante natal ward at Middlemore in Counties Manukau.
She says the pay level is a big deterrent, and Pacific staff work longer hours with much heavier workloads.
Not only do they offer women appropriate cultural care and ongoing support for mothers, many also experience more complicated births.
She says that she wants their funding model to better reflect the work Pacific midwives do.
Currently the average hourly take home pay for rural midwives was just over $7.20 per hour - less than half of the minimum wage and for urban midwives it was around $12.80.
Mrs Taihia says the need for more Pacific midwives is even more urgent now to service an increasing demand nationwide.
"There always has been those women who were the traditional midwives and they've been the guardians of birth and it's so deeply more than just the profession, they have been around in the bible, and I think for Pacific culture we have to actually grow our own guardians of birth here in Aotearoa."
Previous allegations of racism and discrimination among New Zealand's midwives and staff in maternity care raised concerns about cultural sensitivity in the workforce.
Several women told RNZ Pacific previously they had experienced or witnessed racism and discrimination in maternity care.
One said she was made to feel dirty, another found her midwife's representations culturally inappropriate, while various reported comments from midwives allude to Pacific mothers being obese and lazy.
The need for more Pasifika oriented midwives is acute.
One of just three Tongan women who recently registered as qualified midwives after graduating from Auckland's University of Technology is Valentina Tu'itavuki, who says cultural competency training on her recent course has helped.
Ms Tu'itavuki, who now works for Counties Manukau Health, says it's always easier for a Pacific mother to deal with a Pacific midwife due to similarities in culture, language and customs.
She says Pacific midwives take home pay doesn't reflect all they do at all.
"If a woman's got gestational diabetes, a midwife would have to see them more often, or send them for scans more often, as often they have bigger babies on board. But the pay is not reflecting that."
Ms Tu'itavuki also says there tends to be greater rates of high risk pregnancies and complications too among mothers.
Ngatepaeru Marsters is of Cook Islands descent and has been a lead maternity midwife tutor .
Now a tutor and liaison at Auckland's University of Technology, she says ensuring more students get through the study and into work is a key step and efforts are underway.
"We are looking at recruitment and retention and lots of other things, you are growing a workforce and working towards making a difference in our community particularly in Auckland and in South Auckland."
Valentina Tu'itavuki says science can be a tough topic, but with more support people can get past year one.
"There is a lot of human biology and human anatomy and physiology and that kind of science stuff so those without a science background they can find that sort of stuff difficult and that's when at the end of the first semester we often see a big drop in numbers."
She has welcomed a voluntary aunties mentoring type support on her course introduced by Ngatepaeru Masters.
"So we are trying to build the workforce to kind of better cater for communities and so they recognise that and we are hoping to keep pushing our pacific students to stay in there and we provide the support, our aunties' do provide support as they are already registered midwives who look after our students."
All three midwives agreed, that to prepare for all future babies being born to Pacific mothers, it is integral to have a workforce that properly services their needs.
They say efforts to counter the growing disparities of this area are long overdue, given the majority of Pacific babies are being born into high deprivation areas.
