Mid-wives needed to reduce death rate t to review act

PAPUA New Guinea is in great need to train and produce young and skilled birth attendants if it wants to reduce its child and maternal mortality rate, Prof Glen Mola says.
Mola, owner of the Paradise Private Hospital, said the country had only 250 trained mid-wives, most of whom were reaching retirement age.
He challenged provincial health centres to recommend young nurses to undergo mid-wifery studies and not to send aging workers who were approaching retirement age who wanted to take the course for promotional purposes.
 “We graduate about 80 mid-wives per year in this country but most are old and eventually retire, which does not improve the number of mid-wives at all,” he said.
Mola said there were only four schools in PNG that offered mid-wifery courses – the Pacific Adventist University, University of Papua New Guinea school of medicine and health science, Madang Lutheran School of Nursing and the University of Goroka.
He said plans were in place to build an additional school at Vuna­pope, East New Britain Province, which was likely to increase the number of trained birth attendants.
He said PNG lacked tutors in mid-wifery courses and as part of an AusAID funded programme, two tutors came from Australia to help with courses this year.