Four Wintec midwifery students are about to embark on what promises to be an eye-opening placement in Vanuatu where they will work in the maternity ward for two weeks.
The group will be stationed at the Port Vila hospital, which serves most of Vanuatu and sees 300 births every month.
Student Annie Frogley said the midwife services in Vanuatu were tapped out, and that she and the other three students, Kathy Hannah, Shivangi Topiwala and Tertia van der Walt, were in for a real culture shock.
"I've heard that the hospital is quite dirty. If sheets are dirty we can't just send them up to the laundry in the sky. Over there there's no such thing - we will be responsible for washing down any mess and preparing the room for the next patient."
She said it was common in New Zealand for a midwife to be present with an expecting mother continuously during the labour.
"Here it's one woman for one midwife, but I have heard over there when an expecting mother comes in they are assessed and then left in labour until they are ready to give birth. If they haven't had their baby four hours later they are given another assessment. I'm told they have two midwives per shift which is not very many for the number of babies," she said.
This is in comparison to the six midwives on duty at any given time in Hawkes Bay Hospital, which Annie said handles two-thirds the number of births annually.
She said the team would be seeing birth at its most natural with only low levels of intervention.
"It's kind of awesome in a lot of ways."
The World Health Organisation advised ceaserean sections should constitute 10-15% of births, but Annie said that New Zealand rates were closer to 25%. She said in Vanuatu this would not be the case.
"They go in and they wait until they can push their baby out."
She said New Zealand has one of the top maternity systems in the world and she was eager to apply her knowledge in a foreign setting.
"Through spending time in Port Vila we're able to give the country some much-needed help, particularly in light of Cyclone Pam - that's our primary motivation."
She said all four women volunteered for the placement and each case was presented to a university board to make sure their clinical experience was adequate. She said it was an honour to be with women during their birth.
"It's an ordinary event, but it's extraordinary," she said.
Midwife Anita Bain has recently returned from Vanuatu and said she was struck by the resilience of the women.
"There isn't any pain relief and there arn't any requests for it. Not once in the whole three weeks I was there did someone ask me to fix it or take the pain away."
She said birthing at the hospital was a case of survival of the fittest, and that women understand there was only limited facilities to care for the newborns.
The four women will bring the total number of Wintec students visiting Vanuatu and the Solomon Island to 14 since 2012.
Wintec midwifery tutor Fiona Hermann said previous students had come back with a new appreciation for the New Zealand health care system.
"The experience is a real eye-opener, and it can be quite life changing for our students. They find it personally challenging and really enjoyable."