CUTTACK: The state government on Wednesday launched a specialised course - Nurse Practitioner Midwifery (NPM) - to professionally train midwives in providing better healthcare to pregnant women and newborns, at the College of Nursing, SCB Medical College and Hospital in Cuttack.
The College of Nursing will conduct the 18-month-long course with technical guidance from the Fernandez Foundation in Hyderabad from the new academic session. Around 30 staff nurses have been selected from the district hospitals of Kalahandi, Kandhamal, Balangir, Malkangiri and Capital Hospital in Bhubaneswar through a written test followed by an Objective Structured Clinical Examination (OSCE) to undergo the NPM training course in the first batch.
Odisha is the second state in the country to roll out the NPM course. The trained cadre of midwives will support the pregnant women during antenatal and postnatal periods and conduct normal deliveries at the district hospitals. A ‘Midwife-led Care’ unit has also been established within the Obstetrics and Gynaecology department of the SCB MCH.
With over 90 per cent of deliveries in Odisha being institutional, trained midwives would be an important addition to improving maternal and newborn care. The NPM course is expected to train more midwives in the coming years who could be placed in different hospitals across the state.
Speaking on the occasion, Chief (health) UNICEF India Luigi D’Aquino said while the coverage of health services has significantly increased over the years, it still remains a challenge in some areas. “There is a need to improve healthcare to prevent maternal deaths and skilled midwives will be an important addition in this regard. UNICEF has been closely associated with the midwifery initiative in India since its inception and we would continue to support this initiative in the future as well,” she said.
Stating that creating a cadre of professional midwives having the capacity and skills as per international standards would revolutionise maternal and newborn care in Odisha, Monika Nielsen, Chief of UNICEF’s field office in Odisha, said the midwives will be able to take care of low-risk deliveries and mitigate the risks arising out of shortage of skilled human resources in health.
Assistant Commissioner (Maternal Health) MoHFW Dr. Padmini Kashyap announced that the state Midwifery Training Institute would be upgraded to National Midwifery Training Institute (NMTI) in the coming years and requested UNICEF to provide international midwife educators at NMTI.SCB MCH Superintendent Lucy Das, vice-president of the Association of Obstetrics and Gynecology, Odisha, Bhagyalaxmi Nayak also spoke during the launch of the course.