Places reserved for the North-West

For the Midwives International Day, May 5, with the support of the Haiti Midwives Association and UNFP, the Health Authorities of Haiti have announced an extension of the Midwives training to Limonade, in the North Department of Haiti.  Some places will be reserved for the North-West. Students supermotivated by the midwives showed their interest for that.

Yoldine Fleuriné has been working as a professional midwife in the Good Samaritan Hospital of Bassin-Bleu, a municipality of the North West Department of Haiti. She expressed her great satisfaction for the number of women and newborn lives she has helped save.

Excited students

“Invest in midwives, you will never regret it”, she said in the occasion of the Celebration of the International Midwives Day in that city.

Yoldine suggested about a hundred of Senior New Secondary students who came from different schools of Port-de-Paix City and were participating in the activity consider applying for this field. “Make this choice, you will not regret it”, she said.

Yoldine has remained passionate about her profession despite some regrettable situations. She mentioned the example of 40 deliveries she had conducted in her first month of social service in Jean Rabel whose record was destroyed.

Interest

Upon being oriented by Yoldine, several students who were interrogated showed a great interest for the Midwife profession.  

“I greatly appreciate the way the midwives take care of the women and their newborns”, explained Blondine Saint-Fleur. This excites me to become a midwife’’, added this girl of 18 years old who is in NS5 or Prefinal Secondary High School year.

Toward regional extension of the training

These testimonies were given in a moment when the Public Healthcare and Population Ministry (MSPP/PHPM), had just announced through its General Director, an extension of the midwives training in the North Department of Haiti, more precisely in the University Roi Henri Christophe of Limonade, which can benefit female and male students, students from the Whole North Region of the country as well to become midwives.   

According to Dr. Adrien Lauré, native of Lavaud, in the North-West, the recruitment for Limonade will be done in the frame of a classic model (with an admission exam), with 20 places annually reserved for the North-West Department.    

The healthcare Director of the North West, Dr. Thony Monestime, promised to be fully involved in order to encourage young people of the North-West (18-25 years old) to register for this program.

This extension program benefits from a financial support of the Canadian Government through UNFPA, the United Nations Agency for sexual and reproductive health. It has anticipated a support for lodging and food expenses for the students of the are areas which are poorly served by midwives.

Why to invest?

5 midwives are actually present in the North-West against 2 before the beginning of the project “Midwives for Women” funded bay Canada World Affairs. This progress is important. But there is more work to do, because the North-West Department would need 26 midwives to satisfy the pregnant and lactating women needs”, the representative of UNFP in Haiti explained.  

Investing in the midwives is investing in training, deployment and practice regulation, Yves Sassenrath added. In these three fields, the State is working together with the Civil society, with the support of their partners, among them UNFPA and the Canadian government, to guarantee good quality services through the midwives.

Remembering the central role of midwives in the efforts to reduce maternal and neonatal mortality and access to good sexual and reproductive healthcare for teenagers also, the representative of UNFPA encourages a closer rapprochement of the midwives to the communities key actors who are working there to continue increasing the deliveries of the ladies in maternity wards.

According to the Sixth Mortality, Morbidity and Use of services Survey in Haiti 2016-2017 (EMMUS VI), the rate of maternal mortality in Haiti is particularly high, 529 deceases for 100.000 living births. An average of 42 % of births of the last five years have taken place with the assistance of a trained healthcare provider and only 39 % in a healthcare center.

Let’s work to have 2200 midwives to meet the needs of the Haitian women and improve maternal and neonatal health, the President of the Association of Midwives Nurses of Haiti (AISFH), Marie Jasainte Doriné, suggested.

Writer: Vario Sérant

Picture: Samuel Laméry Pierre