Weekly Bulletin issue no. 26, 1997 Medical, physical therapy and preventive medicine services in municipal health services, 1996. Preliminary figures:

Medical, physical therapy and preventive health care services in municipal health services, 1996. Preliminary figures:

One in six municipalities without midwife

Starting 1 January 1994 municipalities (local governments) in Norway were required to offer maternity check-ups by a midwife employed by a maternal and child health centre. Two years after the reform 24 per cent of the municipalities had not hired a midwife.

One in three of these municipalities could nevertheless offer maternity check-ups by a midwife in cooperation with other municipalities or hospitals. As of 31 December last year, 16 per cent of the municipalities could not offer maternity check-ups by a midwife, preliminary statistics from the "Municipal health service personnel and operations" survey show.

Midwives accounted for 220 man-years in municipal health services in 1996. The corresponding figure for 1995 was 200 man-years, up from 90 man-years in 1987. Despite the increase in input the midwife service has relatively few practitioners. The majority of Norway's 435 municipalities have less than one full-time equivalent midwife. Most small municipalities have no need to hire full-time midwives. Part of the reason many municipalities still do not offer midwife services, is the difficulty of getting applicants to apply for part-time positions.

New Statistics

Medical, physical therapy and preventive health care services in municipal health services, 1996. Preliminary figures.
Statistics are issued every year in the Weekly Bulletin of Statistics. More information: Vera Løwer, tel. +47 21 09 49 26, e-mail: vlo@ssb.no or Jon Erik Finnvold, tel. +47 21 09 45 46, e-mail: jef@ssb.no.

Weekly Bulletin issue no. 26, 1997