By Abdulai Fasineh Dumbuya
Celebrating its 55th anniversary, the Sierra Leone Midwives Association convened to recognize and commend the role of midwives across the country and called for support to the Association. The theme for this year’s celebration was: “Midwives: a vital climate solution”.
In a media interview on the 6th of May 2024, the Acting President of the Association, Dr. Edwina Florence Conteh, highlighted the many roles midwives play in the line of duty. She said that this year’s celebration is in recognizing their efforts across the country as they take into account their roles in reducing maternal mortality rate as well as advocating for maternal health.
“We are promoting safe motherhood and empowering our midwives with policy advocacy being the mover for all these. We have provided access to this drive and have worked towards other health-related areas for women and children,” she said.
Recognizing the vital services they perform in their line of duty, the Acting President noted that it is also crucial to take into account the skillfulness attached to the profession, as midwives usually provide essential and improved quality care for pregnant women throughout labour and during the period after delivery.
According to her, maternal health is one of their focus areas where they do relief care to reduce maternal mortality rate and improve the overall health of all women, especially women in their forties – the period women usually experience infertility.
Dr. Conteh recognized that it has been possible to see a considerable number of nurses being employed as midwives because UNFPA and other related health partners had embarked on training community health nurses to fill the midwife gap.
“As a result of the many training and orientation about skills and profession of midwives, Bo District got the first midwifery school in the country and has been in operation for five years,” Dr. Conteh explained.
She said they want the young and emerging nurses to see midwifery as a profession that could be a potential career course, saying sometimes last year they began high school entries where they encouraged high school girls to see prospects in midwifery.
One of the challenges that she said is so “discomforting”, especially across remote communities is the lack of readily available equipment which has impacted the efficiency of the profession to date.
“Finance and accommodation, however, are also part of it, as many of our colleagues living in the peripheral communities are not on payroll and are poorly accommodated,” she said.
She applauded the government’s effort and also called on partners to support them so that they, in turn, could be well-equipped to carry out their duty without much complaint.
The International Day of the Midwife is usually celebrated on May 5. This year’s theme is at the core of COP28 and strategies to improve the health and status of women. The Midwives Association has been in operation in the country since 1969.
Copyright © 2024 Politico (08/05/2024)
