G8: Why midwives matter
24/06/2010 13:17:00
In the run up to the G8 David Cameron has established a new £5 million fund to help tackle death in childbirth. With a focus on transferring skills from British health workers to midwives, nurses and doctors overseas, his tactic mirrors VSO’s approach to development, where one skilled professional can train hundreds of midwives, helping them end unnecessary death in childbirth.
Alice Waterman, a VSO Midwife Trainer, recently arrived in a remote region of Sierra Leone, a country with 6.4 million people and just 95 midwives. Her first impressions demonstrate why more desperately needs to be done to train skilled midwives in the world’s poorest countries.
“These are just the facts of what I observed on one initial short shift at the hospital. A woman had just given birth to twins. I was not present at the birth but was there to witness a haemorrhage following the birth of the placenta. The floor was covered in blood - I've not seen so much in all my time as a UK midwife. The woman was head down on the rusty old delivery bed and lying on a blue plastic sheet. I wondered about the twins - the first, a girl, had lived and was wrapped in a cloth and left at the side of the delivery room - which was also the office, and place where staff got changed, put their bags and washed their hands in a bucket as there is no running water in the Government Hospital. The second twin a boy - died during birth. He was wrapped in a cloth too - and put on a table where everyone who came into the delivery room passed by.”
Mothers and their children will continue to die unnecessarily if their health workers do not have adequate skills and training. VSO are advocating for:
· 4.3 million additional health workers, evenly distributed between town and countryside
· Increased long-term, predictable funding for the training and retention of health workers
· Technical support to help countries develop credible human resources for health work plans.
