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SCA graduated 18 Community Midwifes in Wardak Province

Malin Lager, June 14, 2006

Afghanistan is a country in deep need of trained midwifes, a country where one women every half an hour is dying of pregnancy or child labour.

To address the high maternal mortality rate ratio in underserved areas of Afghanistan, Ministry of Public Health (MoPH) has taken the initiative to train midwifes to serve in rural areas. Swedish Committee for Afghanistan is implementing Basic Packages of Health Services (BPHS) in Wardak Province, Maidan Shar district since March 2004. The Community Midwife Training Programme has been running since November 2004 and is an integrated part of BPHS.

The Community Midwife Training Programme contains of an 18-months long education where the midwife students have been trained to be skilled birth attendants - how to deploy and primarily serve women and their babies during pregnancy, childbirth and postpartum period and including family planning. All the midwife students have been selected from the communities after fulfilling following criteria’s:

• The students have to be female and 18 years or older
• That they have demonstrated support that communities have approved the selection of students from their community, in the form of a letter from the local Shura or similar body.
• Evidence of a minimum of nine years of education
• Passing mark on the basic entrance exam
• A letter of support from students’ families/husbands stating that they are able to participate fully in the program, working in the hospital on all shifts and be prepared to go back to work in the communities after completed the training.

Achievements from SCA’s Province Teaching Centre in Wardak Province

The Midwife training school in Maidan Shar preformed very well in the binding accreditation process and got 91 % in the technical scoring and 100% in the management process, which is well above criteria according Institute of Health Science, Ministry of Public Health (MoPH). The second batch of midwife students started their training July 2005 and will be graduated January 2007.

The BPHS Project is funded by MoPH with the support from the World Bank.

For more information contact:

Contact person: Ms Gertrud Paulsson, Midwife Master Trainer, Maidan Shar
Mobile: 0799-441883
Email: gertrud.paulsson@sca.org.af