By CHRISTABEL LIGAMI Special Correspondent
In Summary
The African Medical Research Foundation (Amref) has partnered with health ministries to execute the three-year programme.
The three-year campaign dubbed “Stand up for African mothers,” aims at training midwives and create awareness about maternal deaths in the region.
Lennie Bazira, the Amref Kenya country director, said currently one skilled midwife is able to provide care for 500 mothers every year and safely deliver 100 babies.
Amref plans to train 3800 midwives in Tanzania, 2,250 in South Sudan, 1,500 in Kenya and 1,100 in Angola and Mozambique. The remaining 5,250 midwives will be trained in other countries throughout East, South and West Africa.
The midwives will be trained using diverse methods, including direct entry classroom-based training and competency-based training with technology such as electronic and mobile learning (e and m-learning) to deliver the curriculum.
A programme has been launched to train at least 15,000 midwives in selected African countries, to cut maternal deaths by at least 25 per cent.
The African Medical Research Foundation (Amref) has partnered with health ministries to execute the three-year programme.
The three-year campaign dubbed “Stand up for African mothers,” aims at training midwives and create awareness about maternal deaths in the region.
A new Unicef report released a fortnight ago showed that East Africa has recorded the fastest fall in rates of child mortality worldwide.
The report showed that in Uganda, Tanzania, Rwanda and Kenya, death rates have fallen by nearly a half, from over 550,000 to 285,000 in the past 12 years.
However, nearly 50 per cent of all child deaths globally are in sub Saharan Africa, with 17 per cent of them in East and Southern Africa. The campaign has already been launched in Tanzania, Kenya, and South Sudan, and will be launched in Uganda next month.
The other African countries where the campaign has been launched are Angola, and Mozambique.
Lennie Bazira, the Amref Kenya country director, said currently one skilled midwife is able to provide care for 500 mothers every year and safely deliver 100 babies.
“We are training midwives who will educate mothers, look after them in pregnancy, assist them during delivery and do follow ups to make sure mother and baby are healthy,” said Dr Bazira.
Amref plans to train 3800 midwives in Tanzania, 2,250 in South Sudan, 1,500 in Kenya and 1,100 in Angola and Mozambique.
The remaining 5,250 midwives will be trained in other countries throughout East, South and West Africa.
“More midwives will be trained in Tanzania, because the majority of women in Tanzania do not deliver in health clinics,” she said.
Statistics show that only 50 per cent of pregnant women in Tanzania deliver their babies at health centres, due to a serious shortage of personnel in the health sector.
The midwives will be trained using diverse methods, including direct entry classroom-based training and competency-based training with technology such as electronic and mobile learning (e and m-learning) to deliver the curriculum.
Ruth Maithya, a midwife trainer at Amref, said that of using mobile phones, midwives will access world class health education, regardless of their location.
“Such enhanced training opportunities in remote areas will help keep midwives where they are needed most,” said Ms Maithya.
The trainees will learn to manage common delivery complications, such as excessive bleeding, as well as provide mothers with antenatal and postnatal care and teach women how to prevent malaria during, pregnancy, as well as teach HIV/Aids prevention.
“They will be trained to recognise signs of complicated labour and to refer women to better-equipped health facilities,” she said.
mHealth was one of the pillars of the Kenyan government’s health strategy, launched in August 2011, and will be adopted by Amref for the programme.
The mLearning project will enable nursing staff and midwives in Kenya, Uganda and Tanzania to develop their professional knowledge without leaving their workplace. They will also use the system to seek advice from colleagues and other experts.
“This in effect will ensure provision of better quality care and easy consultations,” said Dr Bazira.
WHO estimates that over 200,000 women die in childbirth every year in sub-Saharan Africa and the continent might not meet Millennium Development Goal five.