Campaigners are this week canvassing support in the Commonwealth of the Northern Mariana Islands for efforts to stop restrictions being imposed on Fijian midwives working in the country.
The Saipan Tribune newspaper reports activists are launching a petition asking authorities not to force Fijian midwives to take a special licence exam for nurses.
The chair of the Commonwealth Board of Nurse Examiners , Rosa Tudela, says midwives who're graduates of a foreign nursing school, will have to get US certification as a registered nurses.
A former manager of Labour at the Division of Public Health, Leticia Lochabay, says midwifery includes some nursing knowledge and skills, but that midwives, who're not nurses, practice all over the world.
