By: Ilyasa Baa
This year’s International Day of the Midwife was celebrated in a grand style with sixty Midwives being awarded alongside eight posthumous awards given to those that have passed away from last year.
The theme for this year read: Together Again from Evidence to Reality.
Sixty females including Pregnant women and suckling mothers were presented with baby packs containing items meant to take care of babies on Friday when Sierra Leone joined the world to celebrate the occasion.
According to the Acting President of the Sierra Leone Midwives Association, Edwina Conteh, the awards were given to colleagues who have been working hard over the years serving in the PHUs and Government Hospitals across the country. She said the posthumous awards showed that the Association recognizes the golden role their late colleagues had played towards the health sector that was why they were highly recognized during the celebration ceremony.
The ceremony brought together a good number of medical practitioners. There was a march pass from the Freetown Teachers College to the Chinese Hospital in Hastings where the ceremony was held and the key note address delivered by the Minister of Health and Sanitation.
Data collected so far by the Association shows that there are 1046 registered midwives with only 14 being males. The Association is encouraging school leavers to join the Profession and contribute to national development as the entry requirement had been soften meaning with five subject passes at WASSCE, one can gain entrance into the midwifery course.
International Day of the Midwife is celebrated annually on 5 May, providing the opportunity to honour the work of midwives, and promote awareness of the crucial care that midwives provide to mothers and their newborns.
This year marks the establishment 100 years ago, of the International Confederation of Midwives (ICM). There are currently 143 Midwives’ Associations representing 124 countries worldwide, including the Confederation of African Midwives Associations (CONAMA), which was inaugurated in 2013.
Midwives, who have been an integral part of African medicine for centuries, are the front-line caregivers and backbone of maternal and child health care on the continent. They support women through pregnancy and childbirth, providing antenatal, intrapartum and post-natal care, and family planning services, as well as breast and cervical cancer screenings. In emergencies, they can also perform basic emergency obstetric care.
According to the 2021 State of the World’s Midwifery report, by the WHO, the ICM and the United Nations Population Fund (UNFPA), the global shortage of midwives stands at 900 000, and is particularly acute in Africa. With estimates that 75% of essential needs for maternal and reproductive health care are met by midwives, it is concerning that the comparative figure for the WHO African Region is only 41%.
Midwives are central to the prevention of maternal and newborn deaths, and stillbirths. With adequate investment in midwifery, the report says that 4.3 million lives could be saved annually by 2035. This has particular relevance for the WHO African Region, which records about 196 000 maternal deaths each year, along with the deaths of one million babies younger than one month.
Unfortunately, if current trends persist, only 300 000 midwifery jobs are likely to be created in low-income countries, with the shortage of midwives set to increase to 1 million by 2030. This has serious implications for the Sustainable Development Goal target of reducing the global maternal mortality ratio to less than 70 per 100 000 live deaths before 2030.