Public hospitals in New Zealand's capital and coast have revived a program that offers cash vouchers to mothers who immediately go home after giving birth. The measure will be implemented in December and January because of a shortage of midwives. The Capital and Coast District Health Board will give $100 supermarket vouchers to mothers who don't stay at the post-natal ward after delivering their babies. The board runs public hospitals in Wellington, Porirua and the Kapiti Coast.

The cash voucher will not be offered to mothers who give birth for the first time or via caesarean section and those who have complicated delivery or are not clinically ready for discharge. New Zealand Health Minister David Cunliffe said that the board assured him "no woman who needed to be in the hospital after giving birth would be sent home."

The $100 voucher, which can be used to buy anything except liquor and cigarettes, is similar to the cash offer of Auckland and Waikato region public hospitals in the 1990s as a way of dealing with lack of midwives.

In that scheme, Waikato hospitals offered moms $120 and a free one-week supply of diapers. Auckland hospitals offered $180 even to mothers who give birth at home. But the money did not encourage few post-natal ward stays, which normally last two days.