We finished the fourth and final "Active Management of the Third Stage of Labor (AMTSL)" training sessions in Koutiala, Mali this past Saturday. Although everyone was exhausted by the end after having worked for two weeks straight, I'm happy to report that the trainings were a success!!
The staff of the hospital in Koutiala was essential in making this project a success. The training was run by two OB-GYN doctors, Dr. Coulibaly and Dr. Magassa and a nurse midwife, Madame Traoré. They had all just come from a training-of-trainers workshop in nearby Sikasso, so they were raring and ready to teach their colleagues all they needed to know about preventing post-partum hemorrhaging.
The training consisted of two parts: theory and practice. The doctors spent two days prepping the women using PowerPoint presentations on the ins-and-outs of AMTSL before switching to the most exciting part: the hands-on practice. The women were split into two groups, each group with its own dummy. Each woman was in turn asked to formally go through the steps of a birth, and was critiqued afterwards using a checklist created by a consortium of international NGO's. Not only did this list include the essential medical protocol, but it emphasized the importance of bedside manner, something that is often completely overlooked in Mali.
Along with the AMTSL training, Nicole Warren, the head of Mali Midwives, used these two weeks as an opportunity to do research about the living and working conditions of the rural midwives. Nicole is also a professor at the Johns Hopkins University of Nursing, and was able to get approval to formally interview the women in an attempt to fully understand their situations in order to bring them trainings tailored to their specific needs.
We found out that some of the women have been working essentially by themselves in their villages for years without support or continuing education. I learned that one woman was obliged to buy all the supplies for her clinic by herself because her village couldn't find the money to help her. Another older midwife has been working in her village for 22 years without support or classes to bring her up to date on the latest birthing techniques. Can you imagine if the first person you had to go to for the birth of your child was a woman who was trained years ago and lacked the basic supplies necessary to do her job? And yet these women persist, some working for free as their villages refuse to pay them for their vital and often life-saving services. I heard woman after woman plead for Mali Midwives to come back with more trainings for them because they were desperate to learn as much as possible. They want to do their jobs well, but nobody but Mali Midwives is offering the training or support to help make this dream a reality.
On the part of the midwives in Koutiala, Mali, I thank you for your continued support. Stay updated on the latest Mali Midwives activities at www.malimidwives.org as we move into the next and most critical stage of the AMTSL training: on–site follow-up and evaluation.
-
0 comments:
Post a Comment