Training of nurses high on agenda to improve maternal health care

Training of nurses high on agenda to improve maternal health care – CMO

Aug 16, 2013 News

Even as diligent moves are being made by the Ministry of Health to train more Obstetricians, equal efforts are being directed to the training of nurses. And according to Chief Medical Officer (CMO), Dr Shamdeo Persaud, keen attention is being directed to midwifery.
He disclosed that while ideally midwifery is a post-graduate nursing programme, a feature that obtains in many countries, individuals here are even today trained along the pathway of a single-trained midwife. This, according to Dr Persaud, means that “someone could be trained as a midwife and not necessarily be licenced as a registered nurse.”
“In many jurisdictions they have changed that, but here we still have that practice, even though we have talked about it there still hasn’t been any decisions as to what we will do, so we will probably continue to train midwives the way we do,” said Dr Persaud. However, he noted that moves will be made to offer more in-depth training to nurses in certain areas.
In fact , Dr Persaud related that it was following an Emergency Obstetrics and Care (EMOC) Assessment around the period 2009-2010 that several gaps were identified which emphasised the need for more work in the area of midwifery. The intervening measure therefore was to ensure that at the least nine functions be undertaken with regards to having effective maternal care services.
Among these functions, considered to be essential and should be available at all health facilities that facilitate the delivery of babies, are: the treatment of blood pressure; the administering of antibiotic treatment to mothers who have infections; the assistance in delivery if a baby becomes stuck in the passage using forceps, or vacuum-assisted vaginal delivery; the manual removal of the placenta and the removal of any retained products and neonatal resuscitation.
“That should be happening anywhere where there is delivery,” said Dr Persaud.
He emphasised too that two additional functions that must be embraced at facilities with the requisite capacity are the availability of caesarean section and the offering of blood transfusion services. And certainly these services are essential at the Georgetown Public Hospital Corporation and should also be available at all regional hospitals, Dr Persaud disclosed.
The CMO highlighted, too, that while all of the measures required under the EMOC assessment are very important, not all are allowed under the law. Moreover, he said that efforts are currently being made by the Health Ministry to modify the existing Nurses and Midwives Legislation which will soon be taken to Parliament for attention.
In the interim though a great deal of training will be conducted for nurses, which is expected to see them routinely undergoing the Advanced Labour and Risk Management (ALARM) training and completing basic life support training which would enable them to manage bleeding and to apply drips, administer oxygen or monitor contraction of fetal heart.
“We have instituted a revised cartogram so that any mother when she comes in and is admitted to the labour ward the nurses can start monitoring various things like blood pressure, the contractions, the output of urine, the temperature and some basic things especially if labour is induced,” said Dr Persaud.
However, while there is room for more training, Dr Persaud said that the nurses who undertake close to 90 per cent of all deliveries are in fact the ones who do most of the normal deliveries thus making them very crucial assets to the health sector.

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Training of nurses high on agenda to improve maternal health care – CMO

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