Source: Waikato District Health Board
Our Community Midwife Service has rebranded itself with a new name, Whānau Mai, and relaunched its services to meet the needs and demands of hapū wāhine unable to find a lead maternity carer (LMC) to register with.
Waikato Hospitals Midwife Director, Shyralee Parker says, from early last year the Community Midwifery team had been providing care for an increasing number of pregnant wāhine who hadn’t been able to register with an LMC.
Whānau Mai is a community led midwifery team which has evolved into a service that is able to respond to the needs of our hapū wahine.
Through the utilisation of a quality improvement programme, the Whānau Mai team have increased the number of midwives, improved systems and processes, digitalised maternity records enabled GPs to refer directly to the Whānau Mai service and hapū wahinē unable to find an LMC can self-refer by visiting the maternity website or by phone.
The self-referral process is beneficial to our community who aren’t able to access medical services or general practitioners. Whānau Mai is available to hapū wahine who don’t have access to resources and are in dire need of a midwife.
“Our newly established Hauora Coordinator role provides direct links to whānau outside of immediate maternity wellness. The role is equity-focused, aiming to provide tangible links to the needs of whānau outside of immediate maternity wellness.
Whānau Mai’s future plans include offering a range of home and community based drop in clinics for antenatal checks from the New Year. They also are looking to expand to rural based community clinics, providing care closer to home and in their communities.
“A collaboration between Māori Health and Equity, Women’s and Children’s Health, primary birthing facilities and the Maternity Quality and Safety Programme coordinator has resulted in what is just the start of some amazing things to come from the Whānau Mai team!”
