Joyce England, president of the P.E.I. Midwives Association, checks the group's online fundraising campaign. (CBC)

A midwifery association has created an online fundraising campaign as part of its goal to have the practice added to health services on P.E.I.

The P.E.I. Midwives Association wants to raise money to pay for a lawyer to help put together an application for regulation to the province's health department.

"This is a baby step. It's the very first step towards regulation of midwives, because there's never been a process for applying for regulation of midwives," said Joyce England, president of the association.

Currently P.E.I. midwives can't purchase liability insurance and public funding for the service isn't an option.

So for the past decade, England and others have been pushing the government to regulate the service.

"It's frustrating," she said.

And England says she still doesn't know how likely it is that their application will be approved.

Health Minister Doug Currie wasn't available for an interview with CBC News, but a spokesperson said the minister is still awaiting the recommendations of a task force looking into midwifery.

And even if the province does decide to regulate the profession, midwives will then have to go through a long process of training and licensing.

So it could be years before Island women have easy access to midwifery.

"I couldn't predict when that could be," said England.

"Hopefully it'll be before I die."