Professional midwives from London have been invited to share their expertise and experiences with Nepali nurses during the workshop. [break]
The workshop organized by Nepal Midwifery society of Nepal (MIDSON) with support from DFID under global midwifery twinning project will continue till March22.
Twenty-six nurses representing all development regions and midwifery experts from London have participated in the workshop.
The maternal mortality rate in Nepal in 2006 was 539 per 100,000 live births, which came down to 170 per 100,000 live births in 2010. This can be further slashed with the help of professional midwifes, said Kiran Bajracharya, associate professor of Midwifery at Maharajgunj Nursing Campus of Tribhuvan University.
According to Bajracharya, many mothers and neonates in the country lose their lives due to lack of quality maternal and reproductive health care services especially in the rural areas.
“As the country has to go a long way to ensure accessibility of good hospitals and clinics in every corner of the country, we should be able to produce competent midwives who can provide quality reproductive health services to the needy even in remotest corners,” she said.
Nirmala Pokharel, midwifery trainer at BP Koirala Institute of Health Sciences in Dharan, said the workshop would give hear a very “valuable” experience.
In international terms, midwife is a person who has successfully completed a midwifery education program that is duly recognized in the country where it is located and is based on International Confederation of midwives (ICM) global standards for midwifery education.
“But in our country, a nurse does the midwife´s job in hospitals and in rural areas there are auxiliary nurse midwives (ANM),” Pokhrel said. “Our home delivery rate is very high. If competent midwifes can be made to reach out across the country, we could definitely save more lives,” she added.
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