Hanoi (VNS/VNA) - Vietnam is in need of village-based midwives asthe country has more than 7,000 remote and disadvantaged villages where womendo not regularly get antenatal care at medical facilities.

Many also still give birth at home.

Dinh Anh Tuan from the Maternal and Child Health Department under the Ministryof Health said that it is necessary to train more village-based midwivesbecause the country now has only 3,000.

The need for village-based midwives is very high, he said.

Therefore, the ministry plans to train more village-based midwives and continuestrengthening the quality of staff in the future, he said.

It will also update the knowledge and skills as well as provide necessary toolsfor helping women when they are giving birth, following Decision No. 3755 /QD-BYTissued on June 21, 2018 by the ministry.

Tuan said the department has coordinated with relevant units and localities tobuild a comprehensive training programme from basic to in-depth knowledge formidwives.

The training includes antenatal, childbirth and post-partum care, as well asinformation on nutrition, family planning and breastfeeding, he said.

It is a comprehensive programme that gives the village-based midwives fullknowledge and skills, he said.

The midwives will be trained through four stages of theory, pre-clinicalpractice on the model, then practice at medical facilities and finallyinternships at a medical facility, he said.

During the six months of training, a midwife will learn theory in the morningand practise in the afternoon. They will be on duty in the evening, he said.

“It means that they will work as medical staff,” he said.

The training process is strict and scientific, so the quality of village-basedmidwives has improved, he said.

All of them meet the requirements, he said.

"The team of village-based midwives has never suffered an unfortunateaccident with mothers and children over the past three decades," he said.

Flexible training

Luong Van Kien, deputy director of the Health Department in the northernmountainous province of Dien Bien, said the province is one of the localitiesthat maintains a very good team of village-based midwives.

However, it is not easy to recruit people to participate in the trainingprogramme, he said.

Therefore, the department must flexibly apply the standards that the healthministry has developed to select people to participate in the trainingprogramme, he said.

During the training, it often has to be flexible in many situations. Forexample, it had to give priority to married women to participate in thetraining programme because if unmarried women are selected, the women mightleave the locality after they get married, he said.

Regarding the cultural level, instead of selecting women who have graduatedfrom high school, it only required that they be fluent in reading and writing,he said.

Many women brought their babies and even their husbands when they participatedin the training programme. So the organisers have to be flexible to arrangeaccommodation for their babies and husbands, he added.

He added that it also gives priority to those who have lived in the localityfor a long time and have a close relationship with local people in the village.

Important role

Doctor Nguyen Huy Du of UNICEF Vietnam told Suck hoe & Doi song (Health& Life) online newspaper that he highly appreciated the role ofvillage-based midwives.

"The midwives play an extremely important role, especially in remote anddisadvantaged areas," he said.

They are the bridge of the health sector, bringing safe maternal and childcareservices to ethnic-minority women, he said.

The midwives also bring mothers to medical facilities, helping them to receiveantenatal care and delivery at medical facilities, he said.

The village-based midwives contribute to ensuring the goal of safe motherhoodof ethnic-minority women, he said.

"It is necessary to ensure that all people have equal access to healthservices. Pregnant mothers need to have access to antenatal care, delivery, andhealth care services so that no one is left behind,” he said.

In the meantime, Kiên said the ethnic-minority women used to be afraid of goingto medical facilities for prenatal check-ups.

Since the operation of the village-based midwife team, the number ofethnic-minority women going to medical facilities for prenatal check-ups hasincreased, he said./.