‘I felt trapped’: Midwifery student juggles 16-hour days to make it through her degree
Sunday, 21 June 2026
It was difficult to pin Sòrcha Carr down for a chat: between her placement and her job, she works up to 16 hours a day.
Carr is in her third year of a Bachelor of Midwifery, a course that has meant placements all over the region, from Paraparaumu’s birthing unit to Wellington Hospital.
At the moment, she is doing placements in Wellington or the Hutt Hospital, working four or five shifts a week.
“It's pretty much a full-time job,” she said. Except for the pay, that is: Carr is working for free, with these placements making up a significant component of her four-year course.
Read more:
Holding steady in the noise, Bryony James takes the helm at Victoria University
Why Australia is ‘teacher heaven’ and these Kiwis won’t come back
On top of that, she has paid work two days a week as a healthcare assistant in the maternity ward ‒ a role geared to midwifery students who can offer basic care.
And of course, she has studying to do.
Earlier this year, she hit a wall. “You expect it to be hard, but you don’t expect the workload to get to the stage it does.”
She recalls telling her partner she didn’t want to continue.
“I felt trapped because I’m $50,000 in debt, I felt like I was losing my passion for this degree because I’m so exhausted and so drained.
“It builds this real negativity in you; you almost turn against the idea of becoming a midwife.”
Stories like Carr’s are in the spotlight as Victoria University of Wellington Students’ Association (VUWSA) launches its Paid Placements campaign.
VUWSA campaign manager Lewis Collins says the campaign is urging the Government to commit to paying nursing, teaching, medicine, midwifery, and social work students for their work during placements, and offer cost of living support.
Carr said the hardest part of her degree was not the learning and training.
“It’s the hurdles you have to jump over constantly to keep your head above the water that makes it so much harder.”
Her fellow students are also feeling the strain. In her first year, two dropped out due to financial pressures.
“[Now] there are girls that have considered dropping out because they can't afford it.. But when you get to the (third year) stage, you just grin and bear it because to drop out now when you are in debt for a student loan … you just need to keep going.”
Some of Carr’s classmates hung up their scrubs and headed to hospo jobs after a placement shift.
“You’ve got people exhausting themselves just to make it work.”
Carr said paid placements would not only ease the burden, they would encourage students into the profession.
“You’d have more people enrolling in the course, and more people staying in the course.
“You would also have better care for the patients when we're out in the wards doing our mahi, because we've been able to recharge our batteries.”
Carr’s survived with the help of her partner, and knowing there’s a job at the end of the tunnel doing work she loves.
“I had a birth last week, and I remember calling my friend and saying, ‘this is what we do it for’.
“All the tears I've had the semester, how hard it's been trying to get myself out of bed … It all goes away in those few hours you … share in an incredible moment in someone's life.
“Being a part of that moment is worth more than anything I could ever describe.”
With student jobs rarer than hen’s teeth, Jasnoor Kaur’s heart broke a little when she had to resign from hers.
The first year Bachelor’s of Early Childhood Education student is from India, which means she’s on the hook for international fees of $37,000 each year.
This year was partly covered by a $25,000 scholarship. But next year she’ll pay full whack, and she’s constantly hustling to raise the money so her parents won’t get into debt back home.
For a while, she worked in retail. But when a five-week teaching placement came up, she couldn’t work the required hours, and had to quit.
“That was very hard for me,” Kaur said.
When her placement ended in mid-May, she looked for another job.
“But every email I'm receiving says sorry, we are not hiring you, that breaks my heart. Last week I was literally crying in my bed that I didn't get a job.”
Kaur chose to study at Te Herenga, Victoria University. It’s a course that’s not offered in India, and she loves her studies, and the chance to work with small children.
“Being a teacher was my dream from my childhood.”
But the placements, which are up to five weeks long, are a barrier.
If the Government wanted to attract and retain teachers, it needed to look at ways to help students, Kaur said. “So we can concentrate and focus on our studies.. so students don't have to choose between their education and basic survival.”
Kaur lives with her aunt and uncle and doesn’t have to pay rent, for which she’s grateful. While she continues her job search, she’s doing some unpaid work to get more experience. And she’s trying to remain positive.
“I really want to be here, and I really want to contribute to society, so I just keep trying and telling myself I can do it.”
In spearheading the campaign for VUWSA, Collins reflected on his own circumstances. He’s in the final year of his Bachelor of Arts, and debating embarking on a teaching career.
Unpaid placements would be a barrier for him, too.
“It's a real pleasure being able to teach; inspire the next generation. But there’s all these barriers to getting to those jobs in the first place, which is really unfortunate.”
Collins said that unlike police recruits and new firefighters, who were paid to train, student nurses, teachers, midwives and social workers put in thousands of hours of unpaid work.
“If we want a strong workforce tomorrow, we need to support the students preparing to enter it today.”
The strain of holding down a job and completing placements contributed to “high dropout rates”, particularly in health training, Collins said.
As the cost of living put pressure on students, paid placements were needed more than ever, he said.
According to a recent student survey, 70% of Te Herenga Waka Victoria University students had considered moving overseas for work and greater opportunity, he said.
Collins believed paid placements could go some way to redressing this: it would incentivise students, and invest in future workers.
As part of the campaign, Collins was organising a rally outside Parliament on July 30, asking the Government and Opposition parties to commit to universal paid placements, and cost of living support for students on placements.
“Ultimately, we want to see the Government investing in the future workforce of Aotearoa.”