Madam Rahmatu Yakubu, a retired midwife at the Yendi Municipal Hospital has said there is the urgent need to post midwifes to the hospital to ensure quality maternal healthcare delivery to reduce maternal and infant mortality.
She said, �Unless something drastic is done within the shortest possible time, the hospital will be left with no midwife to take care of delivery cases, since all the three midwives at the hospital are retired and are on contract.�
Madam Yakubu who was full of passion for the job said the hospital received between 20 to 30 deliveries daily, thus, making the work for the midwives quite difficult adding, �I can deliver eight or 10 babies during my shift�a situation which is not easy for us.�
She suggested the need for more midwives to be posted to the hospital, otherwise maternal mortality cases, which had drastically reduced, would pick up again, stressing that because they were all retirees, their job output had reduced hence the need for more hands and new energies.
Madam Yakubu told the Ghana News Agency in Yendi on Tuesday on the sidelines of a monitoring visit by a team from the Savanna Signatures, an ICT oriented non-governmental organization using ICT to champion development.
The visit was to enable the organization to evaluate its implementation of a two-year project on technology for maternal health being sponsored by STAR-Ghana at the cost of $220,000 where ICT was being used to educate pregnant women to effectively have safe delivery.
Madam Yakubu appealed to the government to motivate midwives in the country to prepare many more younger nurses to develop interest in the midwifery career saying, �There is currently no motivation in the profession, except salaries�
Elizabeth Hariba Jakalia, Project Officer for the Technology for Maternal Health (TMH) project, which started in September 2013 in the Tamale Metropolis, Savelugu/Nanton and Yendi Municipalities, as well as the Kumbungu district, with six hospitals implementing the project, was seen by many as an effective methodology that must reach all pregnant mothers on phone for safe delivery.
She said all beneficiary hospitals received six computers with software that would be used by nurses and midwives to educate pregnant women, stressing that voice and short message system (SMS) messages were sent to the pregnant women who have been registered in the system.
She noted that 1,735 pregnant women have been receiving periodic information on nutrition, hygiene, antennal information, dangerous signs and preparations towards delivery, noting that about 72 persons had been trained on the technology on face-to-face or via sms voice messages in either Dagbani or English.
Ms Jakalia said nurses reiterated the information to the expectant mothers, adding that the project �is expected to reduce maternal mortality.�
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