Last week the province announced an additional $193,648 this year to support midwives in Peterborough-Kawartha, part of their $28 million commitment to expand midwifery services across Ontario. This extension will help families access additional choice in primary care during a pregnancy, birth and postpartum. The province is also working to expand the scope of practice for midwives to allow them to prescribe more medications to clients, which will reduce time that patients wait for medications and therapies.
These new investments across the province will also support up to 90 new midwifery graduates entering the field, increase access to culturally appropriate midwifery care by expanding Indigenous midwifery programs, ensure midwifery practice groups can update their technology to continue providing quality services, commit to ongoing funding for a Mount Sinai Academic Family Health Team pilot program to ensure their patients can receive ongoing midwifery care.
This boost brings the total funding for midwifery services to $178 million this year, and is part of the provincial plan to create a modern, sustainable, and patient-centered public health care system. Midwives offer a choice in birth settings, including home, hospital or midwifery-led birth centres in Toronto and Ottawa, and results in fewer medical and surgical interventions, higher breastfeeding rates and shorter hospital stays. KG
