Inadequate number of midwives affects skilled delivery in Northern Region
The Northern Regional Director of the Ghana Health Service, Dr Jacob Mahama, has expressed concern about the inadequate number of midwives to ensure supervised and skilled delivery in the Northern Region, saying the issue is currently hampering efforts towards reducing maternal and newborn deaths in the region.
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He said the region needed over 1,000 midwives to operate, but currently had 511 at post, showing a shortfall of about 600 midwives.
As of now, the region had one midwife to a population of 11,278 and a large number of pregnant women were being delivered by traditional birth attendants who are unable to identify complications during delivery to manage them appropriately.
Dr Mahama, who was addressing this year’s International Day of the Midwife (IDM), said with a maternal mortality ratio of 207 per 100,000 live births, the region recorded 133 maternal deaths last year, partly due to lack of midwives, especially in rural communities, and the lack of logistics.
Challenges
The President of the Ghana Registered Midwives Association (GRMA), Mrs Joyce Jetuah, stated that about 90 per cent of the 600 health personnel who went on retirement nationwide every year, were midwives, and that affected service delivery in health facilities across the country.
She added that midwives posted to rural areas with poor living conditions were neglected and abandoned with no supervision and so other midwives refused postings to those communities, while inadequate resources for service delivery in existing facilities continued to be a challenge.
Mrs Jetuah added that inadequate opportunities for midwives to pursue higher levels of education in their career progression, as well as occupational hazards such as chronic musculo-skeletal and neurotic conditions acquired in the course of practising midwifery, continued to be the cause of the high attrition rate of midwives from clinical practice to other nursing related professions.
Training of Midwives
The United Nations Population Fund (UNFPA) Representative in Ghana, Ms Erika Goldson, disclosed that the UNFPA had supported the training and work of midwives in more than 100 countries, including Ghana.
She said since 2008, the UNFPA had worked with partners to support over 600 midwifery schools, educate more than 80,000 midwives, strengthened national midwifery associations in 75 countries of which Ghana was included and also helped to enhance the regulatory framework for midwifery practice to ensure accountability.