The following is a testimony from a midwife who was a midwife at the time of the COVID-19 mandates. The Daily Examiner has reprinted here with no word/sentence changes:

A slightly abridged report to the Royal Commission of Inquiry into Covid-19 Lessons Learned

Quote:

I have a degree in Health Science (Midwifery) after training for three years back in the 1990’s. The training was extensive covering not only midwifery but also medical and surgical care.

Prior to covid I worked as a midwife – 22 years as an LMC and 1 year as a midwifery clinical tutor. During that time I cared for women and babies in a variety of settings, in varying degrees of health and wellbeing and with numerous different life experiences and living situations. These women came from all walks of life from gang wives, women who lived in houses with no running water nor power to doctors and lawyers.

My skills and ability to care for these women and their babies developed over these decades and my competency was monitored by our governing body – the New Zealand Midwifery Council from whom I was only issued with my annual practising certificate if I could prove that I was a competent midwife.

Year upon year I proved my competency. This was done by attending all the required workshops and study days including but not limited to Emergency Skills Days, Neonatal Resuscitation, Breastfeeding Education and by also participating in a Midwifery Review process every three years where I had to present evidence of how I practiced, reflect upon this practice and again prove my competency. This also included feedback from my clients and colleagues.

Never was I denied my Annual Practising Certificate – because I repeatedly proved that I was a competent midwife. I always prided myself in providing the best and safest care for all of the mothers and babies I cared for. Several of the mothers and babies I cared for are only alive today because of my skill and competence.

Due to a personal medical condition I had to step away from being an LMC Midwife and once my health improved I stepped back in and took on the role of Clinical Midwifery Tutor for student midwives completing their midwifery degree.

The entire premise of midwifery is based upon Informed Consent, Bodily Autonomy and The Code of Ethics.

These are the very foundations on which the midwifery model is built upon.

Yet once Covid hit our shores none of this mattered according to our Government who walked blatantly over the top of all of these. Even ignoring the advice from their own health officials who recommended against some of these measures.

I, a totally competent midwife who at 11.59pm on the 15th November 2021 was deemed a midwife with so much knowledge and valued experience that I was employed to teach our upcoming midwives was, one minute later, deemed such a risk to women and babies that I was locked out of our local hospital and told that if I returned and tried to enter the premises I would be arrested!!

The Institution for whom I worked deemed my knowledge so valuable that they changed the title of my contract to “allow” me to work out the last few weeks of my contract. I guess this saved them from the inconvenience of trying to employ someone else to cover this period, cause they then refused to roll over that contract the following year. Once the “convenience” period was over I was kicked out without a backwards glance.

Midwives who had rushed frantically around to find PPE gear (as they seemed to have been forgotten about when defining “essential workers”), who during the early phase of the pandemic had visited women in their homes, often having the baby passed out the window to be weighed in the boot of the midwife’s car to avoid face to face contact with the mother, donning what little PPE gear they could get their hands on, birthing women in their own homes as they were not prepared to birth without their partner’s/family present if they birthed in the hospital, were abruptly prevented from practicing for availing themselves of the right to informed consent and bodily autonomy and declining to be injected with the Covid 19 jab.

The very principles that would have seen midwives hauled before the Health and Disability Commissioner had we not provided these to our clients was now being declined to us – the right to informed consent, the right to choose without coercion or bribe what we put into our bodies.

Never in my life did I think that New Zealand would ever be a place where this could happen – where people’s choices regarding their bodily autonomy would be treated with such disregard.

The science behind these draconian measures was flawed from the start – the Government taking it upon themselves to make decisions even against the advice of their employed health professionals – so do we are now take our health advice from untrained government officials??? In Dr Ashley Bloomfield’s own words they were “making big decisions with very little information” and even the information they were given they ignored.

The evidence for the safety of vaccination of pregnant women was dodgy at best and non-existent at worst. There are no long term studies of the impact of the Covid 19 vaccination in pregnant women nor the long term implications for their babies – yet the Government went ahead and pushed vaccination upon these women whilst at the same time removing anybody who might question the safety of this advice. Anyone who was deemed “non-compliant” was removed!

Although my ability to feed my family and pay my mortgage was removed as I was deemed “too dangerous” to be working, I was still able to socialise with family and friends, visit cafes, the movies, restaurants and move around freely with the public. This was nonsensical and unfathomable on so many levels.

I could go to a restaurant wearing a mask but once I sat down to eat, I could remove my mask. How does this make sense??

Who asked the women if they cared if an unvaccinated midwife cared for them? Many were left scrambling to find care – a situation which the Ministry were strongly advised would happen in their meeting with the College of Midwives when they met to discuss the possibility of vaccine mandates – again advice they chose to ignore. Midwives were already under the pump and struggling to cope with the heavy workload within the maternity system – the mandates hugely exacerbated this and brought this system to its knees!! Not only did the mandated midwives leave but many left behind burned out and also left.

Who asked the midwifery students if they cared if their tutor was unvaccinated?? What has this taught midwifery students? That it is ok to bully and coerce women into choosing the option that we want? That informed consent is hounding a person until they choose the option we want. That women should be punished for “choosing the wrong option”??

In the hospital vaccinated and unvaccinated women shared rooms yet we as qualified, competent health professionals were deemed too much of a risk to allow on the premises. This made no sense.

Even when the mandates were “lifted” the discrimination continued. Even when the Government stood up and declared that the vaccine mandates had been dropped – they lied!!

As DHB’s awaited Te Whatu Ora to produce a Nationwide Vaccination Policy they would not employ unvaccinated health care workers.

Even as the health care system continued to implode, unvaccinated health care workers were left out in the cold.

Then the DHB’s starting allowing unvaccinated workers back but only under contract and not as employed workers. So I, as an unvaccinated midwife, could work there as a contractor and not be a risk to my clients but once I was employed by Te Whatu Ora the virus knew this, jumped on board, and I became a risk again??? Clever wee virus!!! Totally nonsensical. This went on for months and months until it got to the point where I just don’t want to go back! They don’t deserve me!! I have learned my worth and they are not worthy of me!!

Even 5 years down the track I still can not bring myself to go into our local maternity unit. I feel extreme anxiety just thinking about it. I feel sick to my core thinking about what happened but you know what – I stand proud and I stand tall and I do not regret my decision for a millisecond! I would do it all again in a heartbeat.

The discrimination and bullying that was allowed to happen under the guise of “take the jab to save granny” was disgusting and shameful and must never be allowed to happen again.