Image: Hanifatur Rosyidah, S.Si.T., M.PH., Lecturer at Unissula Midwifery Program (headscarfed) as a speaker at a midwifery conference in Vancouver Canada 2 June 2019

Hanifatur Rosyidah, S.Si.T., M.PH., lecturer at Unissula Midwifery Program was one of the speakers at the fourth global midwifery symposium held in Vancouver Canada on June 2, 2019.

Hani stated that the symposium was a series of pre-conference women deliver events, which is the world’s largest conference on gender equality and women’s health, rights and welfare. Organized by several UN agencies, namely the United Nations Population Fund (UNFPA) and World Health Organization (WHO) along with the International Confederation of Midwives (ICM).

The purpose of the symposium was to call for an environment that could support the services of professional midwives and to discuss the importance of investing in education and midwifery regulations. “Basically, when midwives are educated to international standards, they can prevent more than 80% of all maternal and newborn deaths,” she said.

Hanifatur conveyed that if we wanted to improve the quality of midwifery services, then we needed to ensure that all components of quality insurance were already there; that included adequate equipment and facilities, the existence of a monitoring and evaluation system, guidelines or SOP, and trainings to improve the skills of midwives.

Enabling environments for midwife practices included: the ability to be responsible for independent decisions within the scope of regulated practices, functional health infrastructure with adequate human resources, support, equipment and supplies, access to consultation, collaboration and punctual and qualified referrals, safety from anything that may endanger both physically and emotionally, and fair compensation.

Hanifatur added that ICM had done an extraordinary job in providing important documents to improve the quality of midwifery services. Each country only needed to transfer it to the local language and conduct advocacy and implementation.

Another speaker, Arthur Erken, from UNFPA said midwives were the main players in efforts to reduce preventable maternal deaths. Therefore he encouraged all countries to invest in improving midwifery human resources.

In line with Arthur, Anneka Knutsson, sexual and reproductive health expert UNFPA, pushed the importance of investing in human resources. “Invest in midwives and support them in doing work. That is what women want, and that is what the world needs,” said Anneke.

Meanwhile the moderator, the president of the world midwife association, Franka Cadee, concluded “Investment in education, regulation and support for midwives can prevent most maternal and infant deaths. Every midwife must have the opportunity to work in an environment that allows providing quality services.”

The symposium also called for the implementation of priority action plans to strengthen midwifery education outlined in the Framework for Action-Strengthening Quality Midwifery Education for Universal Health Coverage 2030.