Tories deliver plan to regulate midwives

Nova Scotia plans to pay midwives to help women through their pregnancies, but there are few details about how the service will work.

The Progressive Conservative government introduced legislation Wednesday to integrate midwives into the health-care system.

For decades, midwives have been lobbying to be regulated and funded by the government, as they are in many other provinces outside Atlantic Canada.

Octavia James, chair of a pro-midwife consumer group, says she spent about $2,500 on midwives during each of her two pregnancies.

She's glad the service could soon be more accessible to all Nova Scotians.

"I moved here from Ontario where it was funded, and it's hard for me to see the women of Nova Scotia and the families of Nova Scotia not being able to have that," James said.

The government has little information about how the system will work.

Health Minister Chris d'Entremont said he has no details yet about how midwives will be paid or how much the program will cost.

But he said he wants the legislation to pass this fall.

There are nine working midwives in Nova Scotia. One midwifeexpects dozens more will return to the province once the legislation is passed.

"We're keeping lists of the number of Nova Scotiawomen who are actually practising somewhere else in England, in Ontario who are desperate to come home," said Kerstin Martin, withthe Nova Scotia Association of Midwives.

Martin said midwives will help women receive prenatal care in remote areas where family doctors are scarce.