P.E.I. midwives so popular that a 2nd location in Summerside is being planned
Clinic in Summerside should let year-old service cover more patients across P.E.I.
After the first year of midwife services being available for Prince Edward Island families, plans are in the works to expand to a second location in Summerside, to more easily serve people from western parts of the province.
Islanders spent years asking the province to allow midwives, who guide prospective parents before and during pregnancy, are with them throughout labour and birth, and do check-ups after the child is born. Just over a year ago, P.E.I. became the last Canadian province or territory to regulate the health specialty.
The sole clinic that's been located in Charlottetown for the last 12 months has five registered midwives, one of them being Mae Jewell.
"I think it's monumental change," she said. "It's been needed for a long time, to have this option for folks. People seem so excited to have the option to deliver where they want to deliver, and we're having a lot of interest in home birth."
Only registered midwives can preside over home births, which can be arranged if the birth is expected to be an uncomplicated one that will not require the full array of hospital services.
Jewell said the P.E.I. midwife service allows people to choose how they want to give birth.
Everyone's different, and everyone has different ideas of how they want their birth to go.— Mae Jewell
"Everyone's different, and everyone has different ideas of how they want their birth to go."
Jill Nafziger is a registered midwife as well as president of the P.E.I. Midwives Association. She said it's good that Islanders finally have access to this kind of care.
"People have always wanted choices; there's been a push for a long time for midwifery care here," she said.
"P.E.I. is the last province to legislate midwifery, so it's been an option in other places and now it's available here for families as well."
Full complement in Charlottetown
The past year has been good for the Charlottetown clinic, said Melissa Roberts, the midwifery services lead at Health P.E.I.
"It's been exciting. It's been so rewarding just to have that reach-out to people who are interested in what we do."
And Islanders have proven they are interested, she said. When the clinic first started, it had only two midwives. After feeling the pressure of not being able to keep up with demand, they've hired three more.
"As excited as we were to take on families, we also felt that pressure of not keeping up with the amount of people who were really interested in our care," Roberts said.
Within the first two days of opening, Roberts said they had more than 100 people contact them, interested in their services.
"We're now a full complement of midwives here in Charlottetown, so... we're doing a better job of keeping up with the amount of people who are interested in our services. So it's been a great year."
'We do hope to expand'
Because it's a provincial program, anyone on P.E.I. has access to midwifery services, not just Charlottetown residents.
But the interest has been concentrated around the Charlottetown area, said Nafziger.
That's why plans for an additional location in Summerside are in the works — "just to drive that message that anyone from the province can really reach out for the care that we provide...
"Down the road we do hope to expand and hire more midwives to cover more of the Island so that more families can receive services."
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