Hamburg to offer midwifery university course from 2020/21

on 07 January 2020

The Faculty of Medicine at the University of Hamburg and the Hamburg University of Applied Sciences (HAW) have made the city one of the first in Germany to introduce a third-level midwifery training course.

The cross-university midwifery course, which will be held at the University Medical Center Hamburg-Eppendorf (UKE), will commence from the winter term 2020/21.

Senator for Science, Research and Equality, Katharina Fegebank, said: “This inter-university co-operation is unique in Germany”.

The course will cover midwifery care from family planning to the first year of the child’s life. The academic side of the course will take place at HAW and UKE, with the practical part being carried out in teaching hospitals and birth centres.

60 places will be available initially, with the number of places increasing to 180 from 2023.

In September 2019, the German Government and the Bundesrat passed a law for the introduction of dual studies and student remuneration to make the midwifery profession more academic and attractive.

Funding for the practical aspect of the course and student renumeration will be covered under the Hospital Financing Act (funded mainly by statutory and private health insurers), and costs incurred by the universities will be borne by the German states.

This is part of an EU directive that encourages the academisation of midwifery training.

The new midwifery course has been established after the German Midwives’ Association found that just 24,000 midwives cared for a total of 784,901 births across Germany in 2017.

Students must have completed 12 years of school education or have successfully completed vocational training in health and nursing to apply for a place on the course.

Source: Hamburg News