By Kebba AF Touray
The National Audit Office (NAO) has cautioned that inadequate midwives can result in complications in pregnancy and maternal mortality care in hospitals and health facilities.
The aforesaid warning was mentioned by the Audit Office in its audit performance report on the delivery of emergency obstetric care (EOC) by the Ministry of Health, and stated the above information specifically on the midwifery workforce management segment of its said report in the year 2023 titled: ‘‘Follow up audit on Emergency Obstetric Care of the Ministry of Health, April 2024.’’
The Audit Office in their report explained that antenatal care should be provided by a skilled and professional midwife for effective delivery of the 2016 WHO Antenatal Care (ANC) model, according to the national maternal and neonatal care guidelines and service delivery standards of April 2017, and that the Ministry of Health is responsible for recruiting and posting midwives in all the public health facilities across the country.
The Audit Office said they have noted during their visit to health facilities, that the Ministry of Health has indeed recruited midwives for EOC services and posted them to various health facilities across the country; that they have also noted that only three minor health facilities (Kaur, Brikamaba, and Kaiaf), have met the minimum staffing requirement for midwives, representing 15 percent of all the health facilities they visited.
The Audit Office in their report also took note of the situation that some minor health centers, and all major health centers and hospitals visited, have not met the minimum staffing requirement for midwives, representing 85 percent of all the health facilities they visited.
“However, there are still huge gaps in the midwifery workforce management because more than 80 percent of the health facilities we visited had shortfalls in midwife requirements for effective EOC services delivery,” the NAO report said.
