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Alliance petitions govt on maternal deaths

Kalilani (L) receiving the petition from Kamwendo
Kalilani (L) receiving the petition from Kamwendo

The White Ribbon Alliance (WRA) Malawi chapter has petitioned Minister of Health Jean Kalirani over the increasing deaths of women during pregnancy and childbirth in the country.

The alliance has attributed the problem to government’s low investment in the midwifery profession.

The petition was presented to Kalirani by WRA Malawi board chairperson Lennie Kamwendo at Capital Hill in Lilongwe yesterday.

Presenting the petition, Kamwendo, who was accompanied by several traditional leaders, said midwives are key to saving lives of mothers and newborns yet in the current Ministry of Health Strategic Plan there is no indication about how many midwives Malawi needs and how the numbers will be increased to the levels required to ensure that every child-bearing mother has a skilled midwife.

Reads the petition in part: “For a country that has been reeling from high maternal mortality for decades, investment in midwifery and midwives has been minimal.

“In addition, the human resources structure in the Ministry of Health has no career path for midwives and yet there are career paths for nurses, nurses with post-registration community health or psychiatric nursing. For healthcare professionals who do so much to save the lives of women and their newborns, their status is very low.”

WRA has since asked government to determine and document the number of midwives who are currently engaged in hands-on provision of midwifery care in all the districts in Malawi and establish how many midwives the country actually needs to provide quality care to women and their families by March 2015.

In her remarks after receiving the petition, Kalirani sympathised with the concerns raised but assured WRA of government commitment.

“We will look into these concerns and work on how we can address them. We are aware of the challenges facing midwifery and we are putting structures in place to address that,” said Kalirani.

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One Comment

  1. The trouble is all this needs money and without money even the brightest of the bright ministers casnnot correct the situation quickly! Lets work together to bring about change for the better.

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