Access to maternal health services in Liberia

AmeriCares is dedicated to increasing health care access for expectant mothers, newborns and young children throughout Liberia. Last month, we continued our training program for nurses and midwives at two health clinics in Liberia and partnered with the Liberian Government Hospital to conduct educational outreach sessions for new mothers.

The first training was led by Toks, AmeriCares midwife-nurses trainer, at the Zondo health clinic. The two-day, onsite training focused on improving skills such as basic emergency obstetric and newborn care, as well as active management of the stages of labor for mothers giving birth at the clinic.

Toks led a second training at the John Logan Service Delivery Point, which addressed issues for nurses who will be examining pregnant women, midwifery skills during and following birth and patient mentoring and coaching.

Alice, one of the midwives at the health center was grateful for the increased training. “I had never used a partograph (a tool used to monitor labor) before, I had no training…I can now use it effectively,” she said. “Thank you!”

AmeriCares also led community education sessions about the importance and benefits of breast feeding. Breast feeding is not widely practiced in Liberia, as most mothers do not have sufficient knowledge on the benefits for the child, particularly soon after birth. AmeriCares conducted education sessions around the practice, potential issues babies might have in breast feeding and how mothers can identify and seek help for any difficulties shown by their child.

A follow up “community conversation session” was held at the Zondo clinic for those in the community who wanted to participate. The session focused on issues such as newborn care, referral of pregnant mothers to the clinic, immunization options and spacing of pregnancies and births. Community leaders, health volunteers and mothers from the area all took part in the session.

Involving the community in the new and improved services offered by local health clinics is absolutely vital in increasing the quality of care and accessibility for the population. AmeriCares is so thankful for your support of this project—we could not do it without you!

Links:

• Visit our homepage!

In Liberia, maternal and neonatal maternity rates are high. A significant skills gap in obstetric care has led to underutilization of prenatal health care and poor quality of care.

Since its founding, AmeriCares has been working to improve maternal health in the developing world. In Liberia, we are training health care workers, particularly nurses and midwives, in delivering front line maternal and child health care. Newly trained health care professionals then educate community members and health center employees in safety techniques, creating a lasting impact.

As of February 1, AmeriCares appointed Toks, a nurse/midwife trainer to aid in this teaching. Toks has college degrees in both midwifery and tropical nursing and has worked in postnatal/antenatal care wards for more than four years. In her new role, she will help increase local health workers’ capacity to provide quality care, which we believe will save lives and improve utilization of the Liberian health care system.

Toks will focus on three areas:

• Developing a training curriculum in basic and comprehensive emergency obstetric and newborn care

• Providing on-the-job training to 62 midwives and nurses in emergency obstetric and newborn care services

• Providing ongoing, supportive supervision and technical assistance to health workers

We think Toks is going to step in and do a fantastic job conducting trainings!

Links:

• Visit us for more information