January 4, 2003	Saturday	Shawwal 30, 1423

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ISLAMABAD, Jan 3: Capacity building of Lady Health Workers (LHWs) and midwives is of utmost importance to reduce the maternal mortality rate in the country.

This view point was shared by the participants of second consensus workshop on national plan of action for community-based skilled birth attendance in Pakistan, which was organized by the National Commission for Human Development (NCHD) here on Friday.

The participants observed that private-public sector partnership is an area, which can have far-reaching impact on training of birth attendants in the country, particularly in rural areas.

The chairman NCHD, Dr Naseem Ashraf, said the government was fully committed to reduce maternal mortality rate by deploying community midwives and upgrading referral emergency obstetrics health services for complicated pregnancy cases.

“Pakistan has one of the highest rates of mortality where approximately 50 mothers expire daily during delivery.”

The chairman said to address the issue, the NCHD had proposed a nationwide programme of community midwifery in which two midwives would be trained in each union council serving a population of about 10,000 people.

Dr Ashraf told the participants that the commission had been given the mandate to coordinate different projects launched in the country on midwifery training.

He mentioned that recently a memorandum of understanding was signed between the health ministry and NCHD in this regard.

The different initiatives discussed during the workshop were: midwifery components of women health project, midwifery initiative of NWFP health department, promoting interventions of safe motherhood project of the health ministry and midwifery initiative of the NCHD.

The participants were of the view that different innovative models were available, which must be tested before their initiation on a larger scale.

The importance of operational research in different projects was also emphasized so that after the pilot phase, a common standardized national model could be finalised for implementation.

During the workshop, it was decided that there would be a single national curriculum for the training of midwives. It was also decided that regulatory and licensing framework would be established to regulate the practice of midwives, who should not become a burden on national exchequer.

The newly-trained midwives will be provided with small scale loans so that they can practice in their own communities and attend to 80 per cent of deliveries, which are now being conducted at homes in unsafe and unhygienic environments.

Dr Mubashir of UNFPA, while speaking on the occasion, said: “This is the first time that I am seeing a coordinating body set up to design a plan of action for issues like midwife.”

The NCHD chairman also constituted three committees — National Coordination Committee, Curriculum and Regulation Committee and Licensing Committee — to come up with recommendations by March 1 so that activities regarding midwifery may be coordinated and standardized.