RBC stops offering midwife students a LOC. Midwife student says its "harder to get in than medicine", calls it "gender based discrimination"

[goleafsgochris]

https://www.thestar.com/news/gta/2018/03/19/midwifery-students-launch-campaign-over-lack-of-funding.html

Enjoy being irritated by the hyperbole of the midwifery students in this article.

They could previously be lent up to 80,000; now its essentially 40,000/

[Snowmen]

RBC's arguments seem to make a lot more sense IMO. Also, regarding the competitiveness:

1) Why should there be a link between funding and competitiveness?

2) 6 schools at 25-30 spots each is 150-180 spots for 300 applicants. How is that more competitive than medicine?!

[la marzocco]

I wonder what the default rate for the graduates of midwifery programs are - I heard they have a healthy job market so it shouldn't be hard to secure employment post-grad so default rate should be comparable to those of other allied health professions, but I could be off base. This decision must have been motivated to some degree based on data analysis - factoring in default rates, job market forecasts and job stability post grad. A bank's willingness to extend loans are based on historical default rates of that class of professionals. If the default rate for the graduates of midwifery programs are in fact higher or 'risker' than those of other health professions, this seems reasonable move.

They are still eligible for normal student LOCs, just not the professional LOCs with attractive features.

[FeelingTheBern]

I mean... I sympathize with them. You're technically losing systemic support to pursue your dreams. It's a long road, and it's not encouraging to be told finances are an additional problem on top of studying.

That being said, I don't see their education requiring a larger LOC than regular undergraduate students.

1. Their tuitions is similar to most undergraduate students and actually lower than students in studying commerce/business and engineering.
2. If it's true that many are mature students, they should be eligible for OSAP grants and loans they were not eligible in their past degrees.
3. A large proportion of nursing education (female dominated field) revolves around clinical placements as well. They make adjustments to be able to use public transportation to get to their placements, carpool with those who have same placements, or buy their own car.

To be honest, I think it would make more sense for nursing students to get the professional line of credit vs. midwifery students. Nurses (RPN, RN) are a necessary profession in health-care, where no one in other professions are trained to do what they do. I appreciate midwives and the diverse option they provide for mothers for their pregnancy, L&D, and post-partum experience - but they are not a necessity. There are already established members in health care who can do what they do.

Low risk pregnancies can be looked after by FM's with additional OB experience. Post-partum care can be followed up by GP's in clinic and/or public health nurses who do house visits.

No one is denying them a LOC. RBC doesn't think midwives deserve special treatment/special LOC - which I think is up to their discretion to decide. Now if this articles was about OSAP not covering midwifery education, I would have a vastly different opinion.

[Calopee]

Low risk pregnancies can be looked after by FM's with additional OB experience. Post-partum care can be followed up by GP's in clinic and/or public health nurses who do house visits.

@FeelingTheBern midwives cost the governement alot less than GP's for the same service. From my point of view they are essential financially and for freedom of choice (choosing to give birth somewhere else than the hospital).

[Butterfly_]

Calling RBC’s decision to stop LOC’s for midwives as gender-based discrimination is such a stretch. Banks make decisions such as these based on default rates, interest rates, and risk. It doesn’t make any business sense for them to discriminate on this matter. 

[Calopee]

1 minute ago, Butterfly_ said:

Calling RBC’s decision to stop LOC’s for midwives as gender-based discrimination is such a stretch. Banks make decisions such as these based on default rates, interest rates, and risk. It doesn’t make any business sense for them to discriminate on this matter. 

Agreed. 

[rmorelan]

I always find this stuff to be one of the major flaws in our education system for health professionals - you cannot expect a 3rd party (bank) to always do something that supports some public policy goal. They don't exist to help you, and in this case in particular the fact that only one bank is even doing it suggests either global misunderstanding of the benefits of offering them (which is quite possible - they may not "get" the end income, the demand for them and thus great chance of getting a job, and the reputation benefits of helping them), or their isn't a strong business case to offer them 80K - there could be defaults we don't know about for instance, or combined with OSAP 80K is too much. Unlike medicine there isn't clearly any interbank competition going on. 

I have less a problem with problem needing to take loans to fund their education than the creation of system that then doesn't at a government level provide those loans in some fashion (assuming someone doesn't have horrible credit). It means you have a system where some people very likely cannot access publicly funded education even if they are on a merit basis the best for it. That isn't good public policy - and can lead to these silly situations.

Although you would have to debate if it is harder to get into than medicine - but it is definitely a hard program to get into for sure. 

[rmorelan]

8 minutes ago, Butterfly_ said:

Calling RBC’s decision to stop LOC’s for midwives as gender-based discrimination is such a stretch. Banks make decisions such as these based on default rates, interest rates, and risk. It doesn’t make any business sense for them to discriminate on this matter. 

Although there definitely have been times when they haven't followed logic - banks like any other institution have had cases of bias - in this case it would seem odd I agree. 

I guess midwifes are at present 100% female? Ha I am actually curious if there are any men doing it. 

[Calopee]

There is 1 man in Quebec. It made the news a few years back.

[Snowmen]

13 minutes ago, rmorelan said:

Although there definitely have been times when they haven't followed logic - banks like any other institution have had cases of bias - in this case it would seem odd I agree. 

I guess midwifes are at present 100% female? Ha I am actually curious if there are any men doing it. 

I think it's basically their negotiation strategy to claim that there is sexism at play. Right now, they're doing the same thing (claiming that there is sexism impeding them) in Quebec in an attempt to strengthen their position at the negotiation table. Basically, they're claiming that MDs got a "juicy" (actually below inflation) increase to their remuneration because it's supposedly male-dominated (not anymore) while midwives get nothing because of sexism... Perhaps they should focus on showing the value they bring which would probably give them a lot more support from the population.

[rmorelan]

Just now, Snowmen said:

I think it's basically their negotiation strategy to claim that there is sexism at play. Right now, they're doing the same thing (claiming that there is sexism impeding them) in Quebec in an attempt to strengthen their position at the negotiation table. Basically, they're claiming that MDs got a "juicy" (actually below inflation) increase to their remuneration because it's supposedly male-dominated (not anymore) while midwives get nothing because of sexism...

well it wouldn't surprise me there is a lot of politics at play with that field. For some that is actually a major part of the draw. 

Ha I am sure RBC knew there would be backlash and triple checked to make sure it was still logical to proceed. 

[Snowmen]

I've just stumbled upon this article (in french): http://ici.radio-canada.ca/nouvelle/1084893/les-etudiantes-en-pratique-sage-femme-exigent-des-stages-remuneres

The student they've interviewed basically claims that no other studies in health require:

1) Providing call services which prevents one from working on the side

2) A car to travel for clinical placements

3) A computer

4) A cellphone

Yeah...

They also demand that the "prêts et bourses" (OSAP equivalent) should give them preferential treatment.

[Butterfly_]

10 minutes ago, Snowmen said:

I've just stumbled upon this article (in french): http://ici.radio-canada.ca/nouvelle/1084893/les-etudiantes-en-pratique-sage-femme-exigent-des-stages-remuneres

The student they've interviewed basically claims that no other studies in health require:

1) Providing call services which prevents one from working on the side

2) A car to travel for clinical placements

3) A computer

4) A cellphone

Yeah...

They also demand that the "prêts et bourses" (OSAP equivalent) should give them preferential treatment.

Wow. I can name a dozen healthcare professions that require a cellphone, car, call services and computer. 

What a claim!

[FeelingTheBern]

8 minutes ago, Butterfly_ said:

Wow. I can name a dozen healthcare professions that require a cellphone, car, call services and computer. 

What a claim!

Not too surprised considering they asked to be paid a max of $197,300

https://www.theglobeandmail.com/news/politics/ontario-opposes-midwives-rights-challenge-seeking-higher-pay/article15643506/

[Butterfly_]

33 minutes ago, FeelingTheBern said:

Not too surprised considering they asked to be paid a max of $197,300

https://www.theglobeandmail.com/news/politics/ontario-opposes-midwives-rights-challenge-seeking-higher-pay/article15643506/

Wow, that’s about the pay of most family doctors.

Let’s use McMaster as an example

The Midwifery program (4 years)

Year 1 -$8,400

Year 2 -$8,400

Year 3 -$12,100

Year 4 -$7,800

Total Tuition - $36,700

Medicine (3 years + 2 years residency)

Year 1-3 $28,200/year

Total Tuition - $84,600

Family Docs also need at least 2 additional years of residency before they are fully qualified.

Midwifery requires less cost and less time than a MD. 

Comparing to nursing, a nursing degree costs about the same amount as Midwifery. Most nurses earn less than the 102K that midwives earn.  Full-time RN salary peaks at about 78K.

How do they justify a doubling of their income? How do they justify a salary equal to that of a family doc? I’m flabbergasted.

I think nurses do a lot more and have it a lot tougher. Nurses should get a raise instead.

 

 

[frenchpress]

1 hour ago, Butterfly_ said:

Wow, that’s about the pay of most family doctors.

Let’s use McMaster as an example

The Midwifery program (4 years)

Year 1 -$8,400

Year 2 -$8,400

Year 3 -$12,100

Year 4 -$7,800

Total Tuition - $36,700

 

 

Regardless of whether there’s some hyperbole here about realistic expected salary or costs, if that’s the tuition for the average midwifery program, then $40,000 LoC doesn’t leave much room for living expenses. In contrast, the LoC available to medical students is 3-4x tuition. There’s no way I could afford to study midwifery if that was the funding available, even if I also got the maximum student loans available in B.C.

If the banks have concluded that midwives don’t make enough post grad to enable them to pay back a reasonable loan that covers both tuition and living expenses, then theres a disconnect between the program costs and reality. 

[Butterfly_]

Midwives make 100k per year and their total tuition is only 40k.

They do make more than enough to pay back their loans.

[la marzocco]

4 minutes ago, frenchpress said:

Regardless of what is realistic expected salary, if that’s the tuition for the average midwifery program, then $40,000 LoC doesn’t leave much room for living expenses. In contrast, the LoC available to medical students is 3-4x tuition. There’s no way I could afford to study midwifery if that was the funding available, even if I also got the maximum student loans available in B.C.

If the banks have concluded that midwives don’t make enough post grad to enable them to pay back a reasonable loan that covers both tuition and living expenses, then theres a disconnect between the program costs and reality. 

Part of the issue is the level of provincial support varies across the country so midwifery students have different experiences going through the system - with the new expanded OSAP in Ontario, I think it does do a pretty go job covering the base tuition and ancillary fees for the midwife program. The $40K regular student LoC could be used for living expenses. Then there are bursaries and other financial aids that are available within the universities that are income-tested, etc.

[rmorelan]

1 hour ago, Butterfly_ said:

Wow, that’s about the pay of most family doctors.

Let’s use McMaster as an example

The Midwifery program (4 years)

Year 1 -$8,400

Year 2 -$8,400

Year 3 -$12,100

Year 4 -$7,800

Total Tuition - $36,700

Medicine (3 years + 2 years residency)

Year 1-3 $28,200/year

Total Tuition - $84,600

Family Docs also need at least 2 additional years of residency before they are fully qualified.

Midwifery requires less cost and less time than a MD. 

Comparing to nursing, a nursing degree costs about the same amount as Midwifery. Most nurses earn less than the 102K that midwives earn.  Full-time RN salary peaks at about 78K.

How do they justify a doubling of their income? How do they justify a salary equal to that of a family doc? I’m flabbergasted.

I think nurses do a lot more and have it a lot tougher. Nurses should get a raise instead.

 

 

Playing devils advocate here - with still pointing out there is merit here:

They justify it (and this is actually a powerful argument I think) that they are doing the same job as an obstetrician then they should get the same pay for this (for extra politics add the gender issues at this point). 

You can argue that an  obstetrician can do more than a midwife - you would be completely correct. They can do a lost more, but what if they simply don't do any of those things.  They would counter that there are set fees for every single task an obstetrician would perform and thus if they do one of those specific tasks - which is only a subset of things - they should get paid exactly the same. Things outside of that range - send to someone else (just like any doctor would do when something is outside of their range). Equal pay for equal work.

You can counter that a doctor has more training, more costs associated with that training and so on. They would say first off so what? People get paid to do certain things, not get paid for the process to get there. If two people can do that same task with equal skill - and they will argue to the end that they can - then they should get the same pay. Don't punish the midwife because they figured out a way to learn and do what is required in less time. Maybe they are even better at it. Ha, if you were to do that you would have to punish McMaster grads because they figured out how to shave off a year from their training. See how well that would go over   

Plus just to make things more interesting medicine has examples where we agree with that logic - 5 year specialty training in ER? 2+1 family doctor with ER added? Exactly the same pay for the same task. There is more than that too - any doctor is allowed to use most of the billing codes for example but they are responsible for ensuring they have the skill to do the asked task (and if they are wrong the profession and CPSO will hang them out to dry if they are wrong). There family doctors who have developed skills in particular areas and do some tasks you normally associate with longer specialties - ha, for example obstetrics. If we internally do that then it is harder to argue if someone else can operate at that skill level - indeed are licensed to do exactly that - should they be able to do the same? Exactly what is the basis for our argument that we should be paid more, and is that backed up in some fashion with better outcomes/results etc, etc? 

Right now medicine is unionized - and one of the things unions do is over train their members to punch up the wage they argue they should be charged. The more training they require the more compelling the argument they should be paid more. That is great for the union but inefficient for everyone else - it costs a lot more than it has to. Expect people pushing to do things doctors can but cheaper and probably faster in an environment of constraint on health care costs. We will counter we are safer and provide better value but if we cannot actually back that up then ultimately there is an issue.

lastly the midwifes will also argue they should make more than nurses because unlike nurses they are the ultimate person in charge of the patients care. The person bearing end responsibility always commands a premium.  Nurses are critically important and should be paid as such but they have an argument that they are a completely different class of health care worker than a nurse and we should just stop comparing them as if they are the same. They are closer to what a doctor is than to what a nurse is. 

(end of devil's advocate stuff ha).

 

 

[frenchpress]

13 minutes ago, la marzocco said:

Part of the issue is the level of provincial support varies across the country so midwifery students have different experiences going through the system - with the new expanded OSAP in Ontario, I think it does do a pretty go job covering the base tuition and ancillary fees for the midwife program. The $40K regular student LoC could be used for living expenses. Then there are bursaries and other financial aids that are available within the universities that are income-tested, etc.

True, but $40,000 still isn’t much for living expenses. I don’t know about Ontario, but if you went to UBC $40,000 wouldn’t even cover 4 years of rent for most people, even those living very modestly.  Edit: I imagine somewhere like Toronto and larger cities in Ontario would be similar. 

[JohnGrisham]

24 minutes ago, frenchpress said:

True, but $40,000 still isn’t much for living expenses. I don’t know about Ontario, but if you went to UBC $40,000 wouldn’t even cover 4 years of rent for most people, even those living very modestly.  Edit: I imagine somewhere like Toronto and larger cities in Ontario would be similar. 

Many would still be eligible for student loans, the maximum life time # weeks for student loans in BC(to use the quoted school in your example) is 340weeks, which is 6.5 years of straight schooling, no breaks.   

If you somehow have used up all of that prior to entering midwifery, then you likely are quite non-trad, and probably have had a job. If you had a job and are considering switching careers, you probably have some saved income too? 

No different than other careers like nursing...nursing also only gets 40,000$ too. 

Why should midwifery be any different than nursing? The tuition for both is not much different than other undergrad degree programs. 

A cursory look shows midwifery is ~6000$ in tuition, the same as any other undergrad at a big university.  Sure, you may not be able to work during the program, that is a valid point.   Then your options are Gov't student loans + 40,000 LOC    or saved income + 40,000 LOC.

It's not the banks job to over-extend credit, if it is not in their best financial interest. 
 

[shikimate]

They are not afraid to be bold when it comes to negotiating money, this works in this political system. If you're not afraid to stir the pot, the politicians will eventually bow and pay you out. If doesn't matter what excuse you use, it's just all smokescreens. Wish the OMA understood this more (oh yeah, they have RAND and don't have to worry about who's gonna pay their fees, lolz)

 

If anyone stir a big kerfuffle before ON election, watch the current government come out, pay them, and settle it.

[la marzocco]

43 minutes ago, frenchpress said:

True, but $40,000 still isn’t much for living expenses. I don’t know about Ontario, but if you went to UBC $40,000 wouldn’t even cover 4 years of rent for most people, even those living very modestly.  Edit: I imagine somewhere like Toronto and larger cities in Ontario would be similar. 

Agreed, but I still fail to see the insurmountable challenge in finding financial support that is so particular to this group of students. Maybe it is more of an optics things? They see the ineligibility for a professional student LOC, as being discredited as a "professional"?

[JohnGrisham]

1 hour ago, frenchpress said:

Regardless of whether there’s some hyperbole here about realistic expected salary or costs, if that’s the tuition for the average midwifery program, then $40,000 LoC doesn’t leave much room for living expenses. In contrast, the LoC available to medical students is 3-4x tuition. There’s no way I could afford to study midwifery if that was the funding available, even if I also got the maximum student loans available in B.C.

 

If you have access to maximum govt student loans in BC, AND have access to 40,000$..there is absolutely an easy ability to be able to afford the program. Max student loans in undergrad per year is ~10-12k$? + any bursaries and grants.    Then 10k/year from the LOC(less if you account for interest room).  That is plenty.    You don't need to live in a private 1-bedroom with chrome appliances.

I get it if you DONT have access to gov't student loans.  But i just do not buy that the majority of the Midwifery students have exhausted all 80months of loan eligibility prior to entering midwifery. If you did 2 bachelors and a masters prior to entering midwifery(rough math), that is your life decision. And if they did, and still decided to apply to the program, then they should be adults and save money from their prior careers before making the transition.  It is not as if the RBC LOC is interest free.