Focus on training, friendly workplaces for midwives

The government is planning to deploy 24,000 professional midwives in phases to drastically reduce maternal and neonatal deaths and improve their health, officials said yesterday.

“We plan to recruit midwives in phases over the next years,” said Dr Habib Abdullah Sohel, line director of the Maternal, Newborn and Child Health unit of the Directorate General of Health Services.

He was speaking at a discussion on Quality Education for Midwives in Bangladesh at the closing day of the three-day National Conference on Sexual and Reproductive Health Rights at the capital's Bangla Academy organised by the Dutch and Swedish embassies, UN Population Fund and Unicef in partnership with the Ministry of Health and Family Welfare with secretarial support of the Reproductive Health Services Training and Education Program.

According to the government data, maternal mortality rate now is 170 per lakh births though the target was to reduce it to 143 by 2015 as per the MDG.

Under-five child mortality is 46 per 1,000 live births, which is better than the MDG target of 48, said Dr Habibe Millat MP.

Over 60 percent of the pregnant women have their deliveries done at home without adequate care, he said, adding, teenage pregnancy is also a reason behind this.

In 2010, the prime minister announced recruiting 3,000 professional midwives in five years. Accordingly, 3,000 posts were created.

Since 2012, private and public nursing colleges and universities trained 600 professional midwives who have completed their three-year diploma courses. They will be deployed soon, officials said.

However, 1,289 certified midwives have been recruited at the Union Health Centres and Upazila Health Complexes.

“First we will have to prepare the 3,000 and then create posts for other 3,000. Gradually more will be trained and recruited,” said Zahid Malik, state minister for health, in one of the two discussions organised separately by The Daily Star and the Bangla daily Prothom Alo, in cooperation with UNFPA.

Pronita Raha, instructor at the National Institute of Advanced Nursing, said Bangladesh lacks the quality faculty, and special focus should be given to their development.

Dr Jahir Uddin Ahmed, interim chairperson of the Department of Midwifery and Nursing at Brac University, said as the government has established a new cadre of the midwives, it has to have a clear job description, conducive working environment and logistics.

In a different session, UNFPA Country Representative Argentina Matavel urged the young students to be respectful of their midwifery profession and commit to helping every woman and child they attend.

“Providing midwifery education and midwifery deployment to the communities could yield a 16th fold return on investment in terms of lives saved and costs of caesarian sections avoided,” said Johan Frisell, Swedish ambassador in Bangladesh.

The Swedish Ministry for Foreign Affairs in cooperation with the International Confederation of Midwives and the Bangladesh Directorate of Nursing Services conferred Midwives4all Award 2016 to Jesmin Akhter, a dedicated midwife of Bangladesh as the International Day of the Midwife 2016 was observed worldwide yesterday.