It's a requirement of their tertiary study, where they have to carry out several weeks of work at a hospital anywhere in the state.

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Emma Gedge, Wollongong Hospital midwife and vice president of the local branch of the NSW Nurses and Midwives Association, remembered how tough those placement periods could be.

"I know, when I did my midwifery as an undergraduate my placements would be three weeks, four weeks, even longer," Ms Gedge said.

"You're basically working full-time but you're not being paid.

"It means that if you've got another job you have to somehow work out how to take leave from that job. If you don't have any paid leave, what do you do?"

She welcomed the Greens election promise that nurses, midwives and paramedics in training would be paid for those placements.

In terms of attracting nurses and midwives, Ms Gedge said it would make a huge difference.

"When you're doing nursing and midwifery placement they're often what we call unsociable hours - afternoon shifts, night shifts," she said.

"Having paid placements would be a real game changer and help a lot of people who want to do those courses come into them without having to worry about making money as well."

She felt it would be an incentive for mature-age students concerned about having to juggle family and work commitments around the weeks of unpaid placements.

Greens candidate for Wollongong Cath Blakey said the unpaid placements created a barrier to attracting people to these jobs.

"The Greens want to make sure that students on these placements are paid the same wage as a junior assistant in Nursing," Ms Blakey said.

"With the heightened cost of living, it's crazy to expect people to fund their own placement."

Ms Gedge said getting new recruits into midwifery was crucial because the hospital was short 30 midwives.

"We're getting worse and worse because as quickly as we are hiring midwives more senior midwives are leaving because we've had enough," she said.

"You don't get paid enough, your'e looking after many, many women on shift, you can't give your time and attention to all of them."

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