KARACHI, Aug 25: The Sindh health department with the assistance of the federal government is all set to initiate the training of 1,960 women as qualified midwives to serve across the province.
This was stated by the project director of the National Maternal, Neonatal, and Child Health programme (Sindh chapter), Dr Shahab Jan, during a meeting of the programme’s provincial steering committee here on Saturday.
Sindh Health Minister Syed Sardar Ahmed chaired the meeting and assured all-out support to streamline the programme.
He said that through this programme the government would ensure presence of qualified and well-trained midwives in all the 22 districts of the province.The minister said that the government was committed to improve the health status of the womenfolk and children.The programme’s project director said that as many as 1,960 women would be trained during the 18 month course and the trainees would also receive a monthly stipend of Rs3,500.
She said that the federal government would release Rs77 million this year, as the first tranche of financial support, for the five-year programme.
The cost of the entire project is said to be Rs3,246.74 million with Rs247.743 million allocated for training component, Rs131.119 million for public awareness and media campaign, Rs128.30 million for civil work and Rs627.490 million for procurement of required equipment and the project will also receive additional funds of Rs2 billion from the government of Norway during the five years.
The project director said that under the programme in question all the 108 rural health centres in Sindh would be provided with lady doctors, lady health visitors and drivers to enhance public accessibility to family planning and other relevant services, besides 90 ambulances for different taluka and district hospitals where services of master trainers might also be acquired to refresh professional skills of the already serving lady doctors and gynaecologists.
The provincial health minister stressed the need for a transparent and foolproof procurement plan for the project.
He also sought relevant details from the nursing council about the training programme so as to assess the relevance of the course.
The minister underscored the need for an early establishment of midwives training centres across the province and directed Special Health Secretary Dr Abdul Majid to convene a meeting of the Director Nursing and the Pakistan Nursing Council.—APP
