Winnipeg birthing centre numbers still 50% below target levels set when it opened in 2011

It's been open for more than a decade but Winnipeg's $3.5-million birthing centre has not been able to reach close to its intended target number of newborns each year.

Ode'imin, previously known as the Birth Centre, opened in 2011 with a goal of handling 500 births annually, but it has yet to hit even 50 per cent of that capacity. 

"We'd love to be doing 500 births," executive director Kemlin Nembhard said. "The way the resources are right now, I would say no, we can't safely actually support more [than we are currently]."

Nembhard says the target is simply not attainable with current staffing and funding levels. 

"In a lot of ways we need more midwives trained in the province — more funding for midwives and more supports for the birth centre assistants," she said.

There are four birthing rooms at the centre, which caters to women with low-risk pregnancies. 

In 2012, the centre's first full year of operation, 120 babies were born at the facility. That number has slowly increased each year, peaking in 2019 and 2020 when 237 babies were born in each of those years. The number of admissions has also climbed.

Approximately 12 per cent of admissions result in transport to hospital for labour, according to the Winnipeg Regional Health Authority (WRHA).

The centre's requirements are also limiting admissions.

A woman's pregnancy must also be deemed low risk and she must be in the care of a WRHA midwife and live within Winnipeg or Churchill (which falls under WRHA territory). 

"We get lots of people who would love to give birth here, but who are in the Southern Health region or in the Interlake," Nembhard said. "If you're outside of [the WRHA] jurisdiction, then you have to look for midwife in your own health region and so that's a limitation."

There is no lack of interest within the region. There is currently a roughly four-week wait just to get a call back for the intake list.

"When you're looking at such a time-sensitive situation that's a long time to wait," Nembhard said. "Not knowing, 'Am I going to have to find an obstetrician? Am I going to have to be looking at birthing at home or in a hospital?"

It's a problem that has plagued the facility since its opening, Nembhard says, and it's not just about funding — the lack of midwives makes matters worse.