Nursing & Midwifery

Introducing This Page

Browse to your heart's content to find out about our Nursing & Midwifery services.

A message of Welcome, by Jane O'Malley

Thank you for accessing the West Coast District Health Board Nursing and Midwifery website section.
A considerable amount of thought has gone into deciding what to put in and what to leave out; a challenge when there is so much to say about working as a health professional on the West Coast.
I hope that the information you are looking for is here. However, if there is further or different information that you seek please e-mail us. The email to use is: .

380 nurses (220 FTE) and 12 midwives (8.2 FTE) work for the West Coast District Health Board. Midwives and nurses provide specialised support to people from birth and early childhood/family care, health promotion, screening and preventative intervention, acute care, rehabilitation, palliation and terminal care.

Nurses and midwives provide a 24 hours / 7 days a week service.

Everywhere you go you’ll find nurses and midwives - in hospitals and homes, community & health services, rest homes & aged care facilities, General Practices, schools and worksites. They provide care to people across the lifespan, across the continuums of health and illness, and right along the length of the coast from Karamea to Haast.

Midwives and nurses work to a set of standards laid out in the professional codes of conduct and are regulated through the New Zealand Midwifery and Nursing Councils.
They work within a health care team and with families and communities to provide assessment, identifying health care needs and then working to a plan of care to meet these needs.

Nurses and midwives work with individuals, families and the health care team to monitor the outcomes of care to ensure a good quality of service.

As Director of Nursing and Midwifery I am responsible for professional oversight of the nursing and midwifery workforce, to ensure its members work to the standards laid down by their respective professional bodies. I do this by working with nurses, midwives and other health professionals, managers and health care consumers, assessing what needs to be done; for example, with service provision or education and developing a plan to achieve the goals that ensure quality improvement.

I was born on the West Coast and grew up on a farm in Ikamatua, a small rural settlement in the Grey valley. Like many young West Coasters of the time, I went away to do get my nursing education and stayed away. Two and a half years ago after thirty years, mostly in Canterbury but for some time in New York City, I have come home. I am keen to see that other West Coast nurses and midwives don’t take so long to come home.
This DHB is a great place to work, it offers midwives and nurses opportunities to work to the full potential of their scope of practice and develop excellent generalist skills in an environment rarely found in larger DHB’s.

Moreover the search for new and different ways of providing care in this rural place promises an exciting future. I hope this website section will provide you with a snap shot of what we are doing on the Coast and what a career in nursing or midwifery on the Coast may offer you. I look forward to hearing from you.

Jane O'Malley RN, PhD
Director of Nursing and Midwifery

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