Te Whatu Ora Throws The Baby Out With The Bath Water

Te Whatu Ora Health NZ announced today that not only are they stopping the controversial Winter incentive payments, but any other payments for additional work or shifts over and above contractual entitlements will also cease from today.

In July, Te Whatu Ora implemented incentive payments to meet the predicted surge of Covid-19 and Winter illnesses such as Influenza.

But the midwives’ union MERAS says two very different payment regimes for additional shifts were implemented -one for doctors and one for all other health sector workers.

MERAS co-leader Jill Ovens says the “others” payments of $100 a shift were in stark contrast to the payments made available to doctors who have been receiving up to $300 an hour additional to their usual rate, and $2400 for being on call over a 24-hour period.

Midwives are being paid $8 an hour for being on call. Ms Ovens says members were outraged as this was yet another example of how inequitable the health system is for woman-dominated occupations such as midwifery.

To add insult to injury, some Districts ignored the exception in the Te Whatu Ora policy which stated clearly that midwives were to continue to receive incentives already in place for additional shifts.

Many of the former DHBs (now Districts) had been paying overtime or call back rates to encourage midwives to pick up additional shifts, often at short notice when maternity services were desperately short of midwives.

However, despite Te Whatu Ora clearly stating in its Winter incentives policy that whatever was in place as of 1 July was to continue, Waitemata and some other Districts stopped the payments that were in place at the time and instead paid midwives the $100 a shift in the “others” Winter payment policy.

MERAS says many midwives have been refusing to do additional shifts because $100 over the typical midwifery 12-hour shift equates to less than $9 an hour. This was seen as an insult.

“In addition, many of our members are reporting long delays in paying out the incentives, including delays in implementing the payments. Some say they are still waiting to be paid the $100 per additional shift from August,” Jill says.

MERAS complained in Te Whatu Ora District bipartite meetings that the incentives in place as of 1 July had been unilaterally stopped without consultation with the midwives concerned or MERAS as their union, but to no avail.

“We have asked Rosemary Clements, Te Whatu Ora Director of People and Culture, to investigate where existing incentive payments were discontinued as midwives in these Districts have been short-changed,” Jill says.

Today’s announcement that all incentive payments will be stopped begs the question as to how midwifery shortages will be addressed in the short term while Te Whatu Ora focuses on its taskforces to fill vacancies and grow our own midwifery workforce.

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