Midwives are the pillars in obstetrics as they organise work in the maternity. Today, midwives’ services are hardly known. Gone are those days in Cameroon when midwives were referred to as saviours as far as child birth was concerned. Maternal mortality rate is on the increase in the world. In Cameroon, it is 600 for 100,000 live births. It is in this light that a ten-day workshop on the training of trainers in midwifery schools opened in Yaounde yesterday September 26. Organised by the Ministry of Public Health, the workshop brings together 51 participants from across the country.
In order to ensure access to treatment to the population and also increase the level of care for mother and child health, the government has decided to open midwifery schools in eight regions of the country as from the 2011-2012 academic year. The regions are North, East, Centre, Littoral, North West and the South West. For a start, each school will have 25 students.
Speaking during the opening the Minister of Public Health, André Mama Fouda, called on participants to show proof of responsibility and work hand-in-glove in order to come out with concrete results capable of bringing significant improvements in mother and child care in Cameroon. Minister Mama Fouda expressed hope that if efforts are joined together, less women will die while giving birth by 2015. Since the close of the School for Midwifery in the country in 1987, this category of health personnel has been lacking in the country. As a result, midwives have been replaced by reproductive health nurses in most hospitals. However, the training of reproductive health nurses put in place in 2006 has not met the needs of maternal and child health to the optimum.
The 51 trainers at the workshop will train 200 youths for a period of three years. For ten, days participants will be drilled on topics such as the “Principles of training”, “Planning and process if complete training,” “Preparation and facilitation of training” and “Participative techniques of training,” among others.
