Three facilities awarded for competency in nursing and midwifery training

Dar es Salaam. Three Health Training Institutes (HTIs) on Thursday, awarded trophies and certificates of recognition for training competent nurse- midwives who are capable of providing Emergency Obstetric Care (EmOC) and Essential Newborn Care (ENC).

The recognition comes after the facilities achieved Continuous Quality Improvement (CQI) set standards by the Ministry of Health, Community Development, Gender, Elderly and Children--governing the nurse-midwifery profession.

The institutes include; Kolandoto College of Health Science, Heri School of Nursing and Kibondo School of Nursing located in Shinyanga, Kasulu-Kigoma and Kibondo-Kigoma respectively.

The awarded facilities are among the 20 nursing schools in the Lake Zone and Western Regions which have benefited from the 'More and Better Midwives for Rural Tanzania (MBM)' project funded by the government of Canada, implemented in the regions by Jhpiego in partnership with the Ministry of Health and Local Government Authorities (LGAs).

Speaking to the participants during a ceremony to mark the end of the project in Mwanza Region on Thursday, MBM Project Director Dr Julius Masanika asserted that the five-year project (2016/20) mainly focused on strengthening nursing-midwifery education curriculum in the Lake and Western Zones to enable the students acquire the nursing and midwifery knowledge, skills, attitudes and competences.

"Through the project, some 1, 713 nurse-midwives, tutors, preceptors have been trained on clinical mentorship and supervision skills. And some 112 nursing and midwifery students received scholarship, " said Dr Masanika.

He added that the project also trained 96 secondary school science teachers in career advisory with a focus on nursing and midwifery career choice so that to sensitize girls to undertake science subjects as a prerequisite for a nursing course

The research shows that girls are less 34 per cent in nursing schools as compared to boys 66 per cent in the country.

In attendance  was Jhpiego's country director Ms Alice Christensen and director of preventive services in the Health Ministry Dr Leonard Subi who graced the event on behalf of the Chief Medical Officer (CMO) Prof Abel Makubi.

Among other achievements, the participants during the event learned that the project has made various significant contributions to ensure the women and children in the Lake and Western Zones have greater access to sustainable skilled nurse-midwifery care.

It was initially reported that the Lake regions had experienced a shortage of nurse and midwives as per the Demographic Health Survey 2015/16 shows that skilled assistance during delivery across regions is small for Lake and Western zones as compared to other zones.
Simiyu region (42 per  cent) unlike Kilimanjaro (96 per cent) while Kigoma is at 47 per cent, unlike Ruvuma  which stands at 86 per cent.

According to the available data, Tanzania has less than 45 per cent of the required overall health workforce including the shortage of nursing-midwifery professionals. The data further indicate that one-third of the country (8 out of 25 regions) is operating with less than four nurse-midwives per 10,000 populations, and three regions have less than 2.5 nurse-midwives.

The vacancy rate of nurse-midwives in hospitals and health centres in these underserved regions reaches over 30 per cent due to the hardship conditions and lack of appropriate incentives to attract and retain trained nurse-midwives.

Medical sources demonstrate that most obstetric complications could be prevented or managed if women had access to skilled birth attendants during childbirth. However, only half of the births are attended by skilled personnel.

Assistant Director of Nursing Quality Improvement from the Ministry of Health Mr Saturini Manangwa, pledged government commitment to facilitate capacity building training of nurse-midwives in other regions which were not reached by the outgoing MBM project with a view to ensuring that women and children across the country have greater access to sustainable skilled midwifery care in order to reduce maternal and newborn mortality ratios.

The current estimated maternal mortality ratio is 556 per 100,000 live births and the newborn mortality ratio is 25 per 1000 live births.