Midwives fear zero-hour contracts

FEARS are persisting that midwives who came out of retirement to help alleviate pressures caused by staff shortages could be faced with zero-hour contracts.

The Southern Health Trust which covers Dungannon and south Tyrone has said their midwifery department remains a “priority”, after concerns were raised this week over potential changes to their working terms.

Some of the midwives working at the Trust believe that proposed changes could effectively leave them on zero-hours contracts.

In response, the Trust has said they have been liasing with their midwifery staff to outline future working arrangements as new midwives are trained up. However, the Trust did not make any mention of, or rule out zero-hour contracts, when asked by the Dungannon Herald.

South Tyrone MLA Colm Gildernew, and Sinn Féin’s health spokesperson said he had met with the Trust and urged them to speak with the staff who had been left worried over their futures.

This week, a spokesperson for the Trust told the Dungannon Herald, “Ensuring a stable midwifery workforce is a top priority for the Trust to ensure our mums and babies receive the highest standard of care.

“The Trust has recently held a meeting with a number of retired midwives who returned to the workplace on a block booking basis following retirement to help us sustain our staffing levels whilst additional midwives were trained to fill our permanent vacancies.

“The purpose of the meeting was to outline to our midwives on block bookings our future workforce plans to secure a sustainable midwifery workforce into the future on a phased basis across hospital and community services.

“We are extremely grateful to our midwifery colleagues who returned to work following their retirement, and look forward to ensuring our mums and babies continue to benefit from their expertise as part of our future workforce plan.”

On Tuesday, Mr Gildernew said he was still awaiting confirmation that the matter had been resolved.

“I met with the Trust and urged them to engage with the staff directly to address these concerns they have over their working arrangements,” said the MLA.

“We cannot have a situation, where staff do not know where they stand in terms of their contracts, particularly given the crisis the health service is in and the huge difficulty in recruiting staff in all sectors of the health service.

“I look forward to hearing from the Trust that this matter is resolved to the satisfaction of the staff concerned.”

Earlier this year, in a news report on staff shortages affecting maternity units across the North – caused mainly by the pandemic – the Southern Health Trust revealed that they had 18 vacant midwifery positions.