The simulation kit
The Ministry of Health (MoH) has received support that will enable the country to increase skills and the numbers of midwives in the health sector.
The midwifery simulation kits (worth $100,000) for seven newly created nursing secondary schools, was donated by the United Nations Population Fund UNFPA Rwanda country programme this Thursday May 4, 2023.
This support also comes on the advent of marking the International Day of the Midwife 2023 which is celebrated annually on May 5.
Kwabena Asante-Ntiamoah, the UNFPA Representative in Rwanda said that the donation was part of the agency’s collaboration with the government to improve healthcare services especially in the midwifery services towards attaining the National Strategy for Transformation (NST1).
“Rwanda has made great progress in reducing maternal mortality over the last decade. However, the last five years the maternal and neonatal mortality rate has been close to stagnant. With high institutional deliveries, this calls for efforts related to quality of care including human resources,” Asante-Ntiamoah said.
He noted that simulation based training has many positive effects as it has shown to enhance students’ psychomotor skills performance, social skills, information seeking, teamwork, critical thinking and communication skills among others.
Dr. Vincent Rusanganwa, the MoH Head of Faculty Recruitment and Academic Partnership (L) and Kwabena Asante-Ntiamoah, the UNFPA Representative in Rwanda
Dr. Vincent Rusanganwa, the MoH Head of Faculty Recruitment and Academic Partnership said that the government has committed to training of midwives, increasing incentives with a focus on both quality and quantity to reach the 4.5 threshold required by World Health Organisation (WHO) of which Rwanda is at 1.1.
“We will have to increase these numbers and skills and since we lack the training expertise, we are going to outsource from neighbouring countries,” Rusanganwa revealed.
A new subsector Taskforce on midwifery was formed to reinforce collaboration among stakeholders to ensure synergy and coordinated efforts around Midwifery in Rwanda under the leadership of the Ministry of Health.
It will ensure use of results from assessment to identify the key challenges in midwifery education, gaps and their root causes and plan how to address them and streamline synergies among stakeholders to improve and promote midwifery.
