The dilemma of Uganda’s pregnant women

Male midwives appear to be a sensitive issue in Uganda’s Greater North and no matter how efficient they may be, it does seem to be making the lives of many pregnant women quite difficult.

In an attempt to stem the crisis occasioned by shortage of health workers, some NGOs have invested in some of the communities.
The Health Rights Action Group (HAG) and the Action Group for Health, Human Rights and HIV/Aids (AGHA) have began working with the District Local Governments, health centres and local communities in four districts of Greater North – Amuru, Nwoya, Oyam and Soroti.

Heavy with child
One of the innovations has involved the use of CRPs, who are selected from Village Health Teams (VHTs) and given special training to help in outreaches to pregnant women, at least once or twice every month.

The VHTs are established by national policy and do exist – at least in theory – in every village. It is out of these that HAG and AGHA have trained CRPs and facilitated them to reach out to certain health categories, especially pregnant women.

In the village of Agung, HAG and AGHA pay for a midwife (female) from Anaka Hospital–the biggest hospital for miles around–to attend these outreaches and talk to the pregnant women and offer antenatal advice after thorough checks.

This not only alleviates the burden that Mr Adot has to shoulder everyday, it also helps those who are shy to attend antenatal care administered by a man to get reprieve.

The monthly outreaches take place in various locations in the district; like Alero, Koch Goma, Purongo and Anaka - but not everywhere, owing to limited funds available to the NGOs. HAG and AGHA facilitate qualified midwives to attend to women in or near their homes.
“The outreach programmes also prevent women who are already heavy with child from having to endure long journeys to health centres,” says Claire Mugisha, a Programme Officer with AGHA.

This is a case of “if the people cannot come to the clinic, the clinic must go to the people” – and it is working good so far. The CRPs ensure a good attendance at the outreaches.

The community is enthusiastic because it fills an existing gap and reduces antenatal risks for women who wouldn’t have made it to the health centre.

State minister for Health (General Duties), Ms Sarah Kataike, says there was no national policy regarding the deployment of male midwives.

“I didn’t know that it has its own issues,” she admits. “That is a profession…it is the qualification and registration that counts. Anybody can be a midwife…it doesn’t matter whether it is a man or woman. Unless the midwife is sexually abusing the women, there should be no problem.”

Well, as it turns out, there is a problem; at least the village women think so.

editorial@ug.nationmedia.com