A Non-Governmental organization, White Ribbon Alliance (WRA) has launched a programme in Bauchi state with a view to identifying the needs of midwives across the country.
The National Coordinator of the NGO, Mrs Christy Asala while launching the project at the school of Nursing in Bauchi on Thursday said WRA will partner with the Bauchi State Chapter of the National Association of Nigeria Nurses and Midwives (NANNM) in carrying out the campaign in the state.
The National Coordinator who said midwives would be mobilized through Google forms, using a unique URL and hard copies in hard to reach communities where internet connection is not available, noted that the program is targeting 600 midwives in Bauchi and 8000 across the country.
While expressing optimism that at the end of the day, the campaign will yield positive results in such a way that advocacy objectives would emerge that will meet the demands of midwives in Bauchi, said that the survey when completed, will help midwives to provide quality services for women and girls to enjoy the required services they deserved.
According to her, the project with the slogan, “What Midwives Want Campaign” started in 2018 in which nearly 1.2 million women and adolescent girls from 114 countries participated in the campaign.
The WRA Coordinator who explained that the request for more midwives was number 4 globally and number 3 for Nigeria, said further that Women are demanding more midwives for improved reproductive health services.
“However, the demand for more midwives is not just from women, WHO also declared 2020 the International Year of the Midwife and the Nurse. This provided an important opportunity to advocate to strengthen midwives and the midwifery profession”, she noted.
Mrs Asala said WRA global is also launching another phase of the ‘What Women Want Campaign’ tagged: Midwife Voices, Midwives Demands in order to reach 50,000 midwives globally and 8,000 midwives in Nigeria by using the same open-ended question methodology.
The Coordinator who stated that open-ended questions such as the “What Midwives Want” and What do you want most in your role as a health care provider for women and girls would be used, pointed out that mobilization will take place in Lagos, Kaduna, Cross-Rivers, Niger, Enugu and Bauchi States from June 2021 to March 2022 when the results will be published.
Christy Asala also sought for support from the media by reporting on the challenges and innovations midwives encounter while providing reproductive health services in society.
Responding, the Bauchi state Chapter Chairman of National Association of Nigerian Nurses and Midwives, Ibrahim Maikudi, pledged total support to the programme, adding that his Association is the owner of the midwives and will gladly link them up with the NGO to ease their survey.
“We are solidly ready to partner the NGO and to link them up with the midwives to facilitate them with easy access to their targets to enable them to succeed in their assignment. We hope that the end result will benefit not only our midwives but the entire citizens of Bauchi state”, Maikudi.
