The following activities will be conducted through this Commitment:
- Recruitment of tutors
- Accomodation - All tutors stay at a hostel and are given a stipend of Rs. 8000 () for the duration of the six-month course.
- Training - The tutors are trained in all aspects of nursing and midwifery, including skilled birth attedance.
- Reproductive Rights - In the upcoming batch, there will be an increased emphasis on reproductive rights. There will also be a greater focus on women's rights, girls' issues etc. It is important the tutors are equipped with this information, as in their work as trainers, they have access to a vast number of students training to be nurses and midwives.
- MDGs - Incorporating an increased focus on the Millennium Development Goals is also planned for this batch.
- Practicing Skills - The tutors also actively engage with their skills, as they conduct a considerable amount of their training in the labor wards.
- Refresher Training - A refresher training program is conducted every two years using competency-based training. The refresher training lasts for 14 days.
There are currently 144 schools of nursing and 128 schools of midwifery in Pakistan (most of which have been set up by the Government). The majority of these institutes do not have trained tutors, and therefore, do not have the capacity to produce qualified and skilled nurses and midwives.
The idea for this commitment developed when Dr. Shershah Syed returned to Pakistan from England following his training and saw that thousands of women were dying due to maternal health-related causes, but that there was no system to handle this. Dr. Syed believed that the best way to approach tackle maternal mortality was through midwives, given the lack of doctors and physicians in rural areas in Pakistan. He decided to open a school of midwifery with UNICEF, but soon realized that there was an existing network of midwifery and nursing schools. He also found that over the past few decades, Pakistan has failed to produce a single textbook in local languages of the midwives. Dr. Syed and colleagues then translated the best midwifery textbooks from around the world into local languages. These resource materials became the basis for the training program, ultimately going on to integrate the use of technology in the course.
The goal of this program is for the Government to adopt this model, thereby working towards the aim of equipping all schools of nursing and midwifery with trained staff.
SEEKING: financial resources, human resources, implementing partners, media and marketing opportunities.
August 2016
Human resource to train midwives and nurses to produce good tutors. Can be helpful in implementations of teaching and training of midwives and nurses.
