That's a really good question. Thank you.
When I think about midwives being in community, certainly in the urban and some of the more rural areas, I believe there has been quite a bit of continuity of care. Midwifery services have continued programming. There were some initial issues around obtaining PPE for communities, but services have continued. There has been the same level of home births and hospital births that there were.
Going into a home for a birth, of course, requires that the families themselves don their own gear. However, it has been relatively stable. The issues have been with the ones who have to fly out for the births, which I mentioned earlier.
With some of the issues that have happened, I have heard that there has been difficulty finding housing or hotels when you have to fly south and to find places to stay when you're discharged from the hospital. Family members have not been allowed to come with you. There have been issues with blood products and things like that, which have not been able to stay stabilized when you have to travel thousands of kilometres away.
Some communities, I've heard as well, have not had any health care services in the first nations because of COVID and lack of human resources during that time.