The White Ribbon Alliance for Safe Motherhood (WRATZ) Country Coordinator, Ms Rose Mlay
“Nurses and midwives should stop using abusive language to expectant mothers especially during labour. It is unethical and cannot be tolerated,” he said. Mr Sabaya said this here on Thursday during talks with the White Ribbon Alliance for Safe Motherhood (WRATZ) Country Coordinator, Ms Rose Mlay, who wanted to know among other things the situation facing expectant mothers in the district.
“After the last year’s WRATZ Day which was held at the national level in Songea, there have been improvements but we have received complaints from mothers saying that they have been mistreated by midwives including being insulted,” he said. Mr Sabaya was against some of the excuses that midwives were working under a stressful environment leading to mistreatment of patients.
“For a trained midwife, it is unethical under any circumstances to insult an expectant mother, even if there are so many mothers calling for service at the same time and there are few midwives, those mothers deserves nothing less but kindness,” he said. Mr Sabaya further admitted that there was shortage of trained health workers, but said the government needed time to solve the problem since it takes long to train a doctor.
Ms Mlay thanked the DC for showing concern over poor delivery of health services. “Our major concern is to see many expectant mothers attending clinics and understand the importance of giving birth in health centres. Ms Mlay emphasized that the presence of a qualified health worker during labour and childbirth was crucial.
He said the society and pregnant women should realise that to give birth at health facilities is to save the lives of both mothers and newborns. She noted that few incidents of some midwives going against ethical requirements to the extent of insulting expectant mothers should not make women shun health centres.
By ABDULWAKIL SAIBOKO, Tanzania Daily News
