Innovative approaches are needed to stop the reliance on midwives to fill general nursing gaps in rural and remote areas, new research finds. By Linda Belardi.

Rural midwives forced to work in a dual role fear they will lose their midwifery skills as they spend the majority of their time outside the maternity ward plugging a shortfall in nursing staff, a new study shows. Researcher Dr Karen Yates, regional maternity services coordinator at Cairns Base Hospital, said more opportunities were needed to employ direct-entry midwives into rural and regional areas. Her findings, undertaken as part of her doctoral studies, show the majority of midwives would prefer to work as a midwife-only, but accepted they did not have a choice. However Yates said...