Srinagar: A two-day capacity building workshop was today kick started at SKIMS, Soura, which is being jointly conducted by PGIMER Chandigarh, UNFPA New Delhi and National Health Mission Jammu.
Under this Government of India initiative, the Government of India aims to reduce unnecessary intervention during childbirth, reduce the caesarean rate, and balance the burden on doctors. A new cadre of nurse practitioners midwives is created to support the women throughout their pregnancy, childbirth and postpartum stage.
The midwives are going to be trained for 18 months as per the international confederation of Midwives (ICM) standards at National Midwifery training Institutes (NMTI). The NPMs will run a full fledged ANC clinic, a midwifery led labour room and postpartum clinic in the high case load facilities. In the MLCU, they will manage normal, uncomplicated deliveries and collaborate with the obstetrician to manage complications.
Dr Qazi Haroon State Programme Manager NHM J&K Incharge Maternal Health provided an overview of the midwifery initiative. The workshop was inaugurated by Ms. Ayushi Sudan, Mission Director, NHM, J&K. She highlighted when the midwives are trained to ICM standards they are going to be an asset to the health system. This is by far the most structured approach for checking the ever-growing C- section rate in the hospitals across India.
Dr.Parvaiz Koul, Director SKIMS, Srinagar, mentioned that they extend full support to this initiative and welcomes PGIMER and UNFPA faculty for the two days’ workshop. He also highlighted that it is an great opportunity to promote Natural births and reduce the burden of C- sections
Dr Irfan Rabbani Principal Skims medical College Bemina said that it’s a great initiative and the new cadre of midwives will be an asset to the Health department .
Several Technical experts like Dr. Minakshi Rohilla, Professor of OBGYN, PGIMER Chandigarh, Dr. Kiranjit Kaur, Project Manager at PGIMER Chandigarh, and Dr. Madhur Verma, Assistant Professor, AIIMS Bathinda joined the workshop from PGIMER Chandigarh, UNFPA and AIIMS Bathinda.
The participants were later divided into groups and group exercises on improving the adherence to evidence based standard clinical practices in the hospitals and several relationship building were conducted.
