During my time i was often surprised by the referrals that we got from the health centres, patients with pre-eclampsia sent without blood pressures ever being taken, eclamptics being sent without receiving magnesium sulphate which helps stop the fitting, patients never getting basic antenatal testing like haemoglobins or HIV tests and patients in labour being referred far too late.
So we decided on having a training day for the local health centres and 3 midwives attended from each centre. We taught them the importance of basic antenatal care, refreshed their knowledge on pre-eclampsia and eclampsia, the use of the partogram and neonatal resuscitation. But more importantly we listened to their problems and what difficulties they face, lack of equipment including bp machines, lack of hb testing equipment, transport taking far too long to arrive in an emergency and being too short staffed to accompany the patients as it would leave no staff at the health centre.
Early in the year we fundraised for BP cuffs and other essential equipment and these BP cuffs were given to each health centres so that they could carry out their work. They were ever so grateful and when i did a follow up visit at the health centres several weeks later i saw them in use.
Neonatal resuscitation with our friend baby annie.
A few months later the nursing college asked me to do some teaching for their masters students ans we covered the basics of ultrasound, they were all excited and said that they can see more than just lines and shades of grey now, they all had a practise and seemed to pick it up quite quickly
They also asked me to teach some maternal resuscitation to the midwifery students as this is an area that is surprisingly neglected and done very badly.
