Developing ‘super’ midwives – Motivation to become a midwife in Papua New Guinea

Abstract

Introduction: Midwives have been shown to be the essential healthworker in improvinghealth formothers andnewborns. Papua New Guinea (PNG) suffers a critical shortage of qualified midwives. Exploring the reasons why people apply to study midwifery may assist future efforts to strengthen the midwifery workforce. Methods: 182midwifery students from four differentmidwifery schools or universities in Papua New Guinea commenced their training in 2012 and 2013. During the course of their studies, students were given a survey to complete regarding many aspects of their midwifery studies. 121 students completed the survey and 118 students gave a response to the question ‘Why did you choose to study midwifery?’ The answers were analysed using thematic analysis. Results: Three themes emerged from the responses: Recognising public need, recognising professional needs and recognising personal needs. The majority (50%) of responses recognised the high maternal mortality in PNG. Several of the students had witnessed maternal deaths and wanted to prevent this in the future. More than one quarter (28%) of respondents saw that their professional skills and knowledge needed to be improved and also cited the extreme shortage of midwives in the country as a motivating factor. A further one fifth (21%) stated that they had experience and interest in working in maternal health, with others in positions of supervision or education without midwifery qualifications. Conclusion: The concern about the number of women dying in PNG was the major single motivating factor for nurses commencingmidwifery studies in PNG. There is an urgent need to trainmore midwives in PNG to face the crisis of maternal deaths. The enthusiasm for saving lives needs to be garnered to improve the development of ‘supermidwives’who canmake vital differences to the lives of mothers and newborns in PNG.