Rankin Inlet (Oct 18/06) - Good things come to those who wait - and continue to lobby hard for their beliefs.

That was part of the scenario as the first two graduates of the maternity care-worker program at Nunavut Arctic College's (NAC) Kivalliq campus received their certificates during an emotional ceremony earlier this month in Rankin Inlet.

Diane Tiktak and Rachel Jones were the first to complete the pilot program.

An accredited midwifery program has been a dream of the local Department of Health and a core group of Inuit women for more than a decade.

Many of those who began the campaign for a birthing centre and midwifery program were on hand for the ceremony, including Rosie Oolooyuk, Rose Brown, Levinia Brown, Joyce Englund and Nowjah Williams.

The ceremony brought the midwifery diploma program being developed by NAC one-step closer to reality.

The program is still being written and pilot tested, with both Tiktak and Jones agreeing to carry on through the test module this year. The college began a second maternity care-worker program this past month, with three students from Arviat and three from Rankin enroled.

Campus director Mike Shouldice says once the diploma program is finalized, students who complete it can transfer their records to Manitoba's University College of the North for a credit towards its four-year program.

"We are very proud to see the first two students complete the writing and pilot testing of the first certificate-level program," says Shouldice.

"To my knowledge, they are the first graduates in Nunavut to hold this certificate and be officially qualified to provide culturally appropriate prenatal and postnatal care."

The diploma program is being written by Joyce England, Kerstin Gafvelf and Sharyn Fraser in consultation with an Inuit advisory committee. Fraser says she's been more involved with instructing than writing. She says the maternity-care-worker graduation was an exciting day, but there's still plenty of work to be done.

"There will be at least three years involved with the midwifery program," says Fraser.

"The maternity-care program is a prerequisite to the midwiery-specific year, which would be at the end of the midwifery theoretical year.

"Students would then do a third, internship year.

"Some of us are wondering if the second year may need extra time because this is a large volume of knowledge we're dealing with."