Background: Midwifery is the backbone of women and child healthcare. The shortage of staff in maternity units is a crisis faced by many countries worldwide, including South Africa.Objectives: This study aims to explore the perceptions of midwives on the shortage and retention of staff at a public institution.Method: The study was conducted at one of the tertiary hospitals in Tshwane District, Gauteng Province. A total of 11 midwives were interviewed through face-to-face and focus group interviews. An explorative, descriptive generic qualitative design method was followed, and a non-probability, purposive sampling technique was used. Thematic coding analysis was followed for analysing data.Results: The impact of shortage of midwives was reported to be directly related to poor provision of quality care as a result of increased workload, leading to low morale and burnout. The compromised autonomy of midwives in the high obstetrics dependency units devalues the status of midwives.Conclusion: Midwives are passionate about their job, despite the hurdles related to their day-to-day work environment. They are demoralised by chronic shortage of staff and feel overworked. Staff involvement in decision-making processes is a motivational factor for midwives to stay in the profession. The midwives need to be in the centre of the decision-making processes related to their profession. The revision of the scope of practice and classification of midwifery profession away from general nursing complex by the South African Nursing Council (SANC) could place midwifery in its rightful status.

BackgroundAudit and feedback is regarded as the cornerstone of clinical teaching to guarantee good practice and to correct poor performance. Feedback given to health professionals assists in narrowing the gap between the actual and the desired information. The findings of the research study on perceptions of midwives on audit and feedback highlighted aspects that needed improvement to address challenges on the use and documentation of the partogram.ObjectivesThe objectives of this article were to explore and describe the perceptions of midwives on auditing of the partogram by health professionals and to explore and describe the perceptions of midwives on the feedback that was given after audit was done.MethodA qualitative, exploratory and descriptive study was conducted to answer the two research objectives. Semi-structured face-to-face interviews were conducted with 17 midwives who were working in the labour wards of three hospitals. Eight steps of qualitative data analysis as indicated by Tesch were used to analyse the data.ResultsThe findings revealed that auditing and feedback is sometimes done by midwives themselves, midwives’ managers and district managers. Audit is done monthly or on a daily basis and sometimes inconsistently because of shortage of staff. Challenges indicated were lack of knowledge on the use of the partogram and lack of encouragement and praise when documentation was done correctly and that emphasis was mostly placed on negative aspects.ConclusionThe findings revealed that auditing and feedback and in-service education is done at the three hospitals, although challenges such as inconsistency in auditing because of shortage of staff, lack of knowledge on partogram use and on principles of giving feedback were highlighted.

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