01/02/10

Faculty midwives put their skills to the test in Uganda

A group of midwifery students from the Faculty of Health and Social Care Sciences has had first-hand experience of the hardships faced by their Ugandan counterparts on a “life-changing” trip. Three third-year students travelled to Uganda on a two-week placement, where they were faced with a severe shortage of hospital resources that resulted in women giving birth lying on plastic bags on bare mattresses and midwives having to tie off umbilical cords with rubber gloves.

In their final year, student midwives are given the chance to go on an international placement, to compare models of care, practice and education in different countries throughout the world. Some have been to France, Holland, Denmark, Canada and New Zealand, but this was the first group to visit Uganda. The trip was arranged with Makerere University in the Ugandan capital, Kampala.

The students – accompanied by Valerie Sheridan, Course Director at the School of Midwifery – travelled to Kampala, where they spent time at the labour ward at Mulago Hospital. There are 25-30,000 births at Mulago Hospital each year, with 8-10,000 of these on the low-risk midwifery led labour ward. Maternal mortality stands high at 425 per 100,000 births.

The students also visited the ante-natal clinic at Ndejje Health Centre in Kyadondo South, a rural area north of Kampala. Their role was mainly to observe, although they did get to put their skills to use when required - and had those skills fully tested, not being able to rely on the modern facilities they were used to at home.

“It’s a completely different world out there,” says student Georgie Guy. “The labour ward was like a sea of women, and they don’t have many midwives to deal with them all. There was no running water, and they have nothing like the resources we have so it makes you realise how much we actually waste. The pregnant women had to bring in their own gloves and cotton wool, for example. When a baby is born we clamp the umbilical cord, but they didn’t have clamps so the midwives used the rim of the rubber gloves to tie around the cord. Things like that were a real eye-opener.

“Because you don’t have all your usual equipment, you have to rely on your basic midwife skills. That was actually great experience, and I hope it’s made me a better midwife.”

The dedication of the Ugandan nurses and their resourcefulness in the face of incredible difficulty left a huge mark on the students, who have now graduated and are putting their skills into practice in their first jobs.

Georgie, who is working at Mayday Hospital, said: “It was a life-changing experience, and I think about what I learned out there every day. The practice out there is years behind us, but they tried so, so hard. I really appreciate now how lucky we are.”

Valerie Sheridan said: “The mortality rates are quite shocking and the conditions we saw were pretty desperate, especially for women in labour. The students were shocked by what they saw, but it was an incredible experience for them and me. A key thing they learned was how to provide midwifery care without the technology available in this country and they came away feeling really inspired and confident. It wasn’t just professional development that they achieved, but personal development as well.”

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