Addressing journalists during a one day
seminar in Dar es Salaam, Tanzania Midwifery Association (TAMA)
Secretary General, Dr Sebalda Leshabari said the current number of
professionally trained midwives does not meet the required needs in the
country.
The seminar to journalists is one of the
activities lined up as TAMA celebrates the International Day of
Midwifery to be held at Mnazi Mmoja grounds. Dr Leshabari, who is also
the Senior Lecturer at the Muhimbili University of Health and Allied
Sciences (MUHAS), said with improved working conditions and medical
supplies and drugs, maternal deaths can be reduced significantly.
“We want to encourage youths in
secondary schools taking science subjects to venture into midwifery and
beef up the shortage,” he explained. Dr Leshabari urged the media to
report positively about midwifery and educate the public on a number of
issues such as family planning to remove traditional myths associated
with family planning.
She said journalists should report about
midwives who misbehave while providing the service to expectant
mothers, but also promote the public and other stakeholders to work with
midwives.
Dr Leshabari said the International Day
of Midwifery is an opportunity to educate the public on the importance
of working with midwives in providing health service to pregnant women.
In her presentation, TAMA Coordinator Ms
Martha Rimoy said expectant mothers and their infants are very
important to midwives. Ms Rimoy said in health centres where there is
scarcity of professional midwives, one midwife can attend to a large
number of cases, which includes helping the expectant mothers while
attending to those attending their clinic appointments.
According to Tanzania’s latest
demographic and health survey (2010), only 51% of deliveries are
assisted by a trained professional and four midwives are available for
10,000 patients countrywide. It is estimated that 536,000 women
worldwide die of maternal causes, along with 11,000,000 children under
five, of which 4.4 million are newborns.
The majority of these deaths occur in Sub Saharan Africa.
Tanzania is one of the ten countries
contributing to 61% and 66% of the global total of maternal and newborn
deaths, respectively.
Maternal and newborn health care in
Tanzania faces many challenges, including a critical shortage of
adequately skilled maternal health service providers and constraints
around uptake of, and access to these health services due to barriers
including distance to the nearest facility, lack of affordable transport
at the time of labour, and obtaining skilled and affordable care upon
arrival at a health facility
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