Essay on the Global Shortage of Midwives: Causes and Solutions

This essay addresses the critical global shortage of midwives, a significant issue impacting healthcare worldwide. It begins by highlighting the severity of the problem, citing statistics from the World Health Organization (WHO) regarding the number of additional health workers, particularly midwives, needed globally, especially in developing countries. The essay then delves into the psychological causes of the shortage, such as burnout, stress, and lack of social support, which discourage individuals from pursuing or remaining in the midwifery profession. It also considers broader issues like health inequality and socioeconomic factors. Finally, the essay proposes several solutions, including developing specialized midwifery training programs, re-engaging retired midwives, providing workplace support, and reforming the health sector to address equity concerns and improve the recognition of midwives as professionals. The essay concludes by emphasizing the need for practical solutions to strengthen the midwifery workforce and ensure the provision of safe and effective healthcare services.

Running Head: SHORTAGE OF MIDWIVES 1
Shortage of Midwives in the World
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Introduction
The shortage of health workers, especially midwives is a significant problem that is being
experienced globally. Effective and immediate interventions should be undertaken in order to
solve this shortage. According to the World Health Organization (WHO), there is an estimate
that the world needs approximately 4.2 million more health workers in the medical facilities and
the African countries alone need 1.5 million of them. The analysis shows that there is need of at
least 350,000 midwives in around 58 countries, and the majority of them are needed in the poor
third world countries (Sun & Larson, 2015). This essay aims to discuss the possible causes of the
shortage and the solutions that have been put in place by the WHO to address this issue.
Psychological causes of the shortage of midwives
There is a global shortage of health workers and especially the nurses and the midwives
who account to almost 50% of the worldwide health workforce (Haddad & Toney-Butler, 2019).
The most significant percentage of the shortage has been reported in South East Asia and Africa.
According to the world health organization, for countries to be able to accomplish sustainable
development goals, there is a need of at least 9milllion midwives and nurses. Midwives play a
very critical role in the promotion of health, prevention of diseases and provision of primary
healthcare and this is vital in the achievement of universal health coverage.
Midwives lack adequate mental health skills and knowledge hence posing a psychosocial
risk to them. There are several psychological and physical burnout, depression, anxiety and stress
that is typically reflected within the midwives in the world. This burnout usually is due to
shortage of the health workers, and the available few midwives are forced to work for extra
hours bringing fatigue, emotional exhaustion as well as high levels of stress. It’s well-known that

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when staffs are overworked under intense pressure due to staffing shortage, they struggle a lot.
This results to people unwilling to undertake midwifery as a career and hence resulting to
shortage.
Lack of social support is another psychological factor that results in a shortage in the
number of midwives. Most midwives usually are not given social support in their work and
therefore, not many people are willing to undertake such a career. They also have poor
socioeconomic conditions like poverty which does not motivate them. General health inequality,
where the profession of midwifery is considered as a low discipline compared to others like
nursing is another factor that results in a lack of motivation among midwives. This results in
people not undertaking midwifery and the lack of support worsen the situation.
The shortage of midwifery is likely to be experienced in the world for a little longer time
since the world population is increasing as births are a natural process, and hence more babies
are being born (Thompson, 2016).
Solutions to the shortage of midwives
The long term solution to the problem of shortage of midwives is to develop a school of
trainees to expertise on midwifery (Yigzaw et al, 2015). There is a midwives shortage and yet
there are several midwives who are retired and are not able to take a contract. The health sector
should be able to contact and re-engage those midwives that are already retired and are capable
of working again since the midwives who have spent a long time in the profession are likely to
have low burnout levels than those who are just new.
There is also need for the midwives to take a little exercise in their workplace in order to
reduce levels of fatigue. Several other solutions that should be embarked on are to set a separate

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midwifery program to run parallel to the nursing program (Pallant, Dixon, Sidebotham &
Fenwick, 2015). Reformation of the health sector should also be undertaken. Policies to focus on
equity on those working in the health sector like nurses and midwives should be adopted in order
to encourage most people to recognize midwifery as a good discipline and treat them as
professionals (Lori, Stalls & Rominski, 2015).
Conclusion
In conclusion, it is evident from the essay that the psychological causes of midwives
shortage are factors that can be rectified. These causes should be well analyzed in order for
practical solutions to be undertaken. Strengthening of midwives is vital in order to ensure safe
and effective rendering of services by the midwives. Improved and operative actions are needed
to better the health provision by the midwives, especially through creating professional training
institutions for the midwives, just like the doctors and nursing institutions.

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References
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of nursing management, 24(3), 273-274.
Haddad, L. M., & Toney-Butler, T. J. (2019). Nursing shortage. In StatPearls [Internet].
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(2015). How well does pre-service education prepare midwives for practice: competence
assessment of midwifery students at the point of graduation in Ethiopia. BMC medical
education, 15(1), 130.
Lori, J. R., Stalls, S., & Rominski, S. (2015). Strengthening Midwifery to End Preventable
Maternal, Child, and Newborn Health. Journal of midwifery & women's health, 60(4),
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