Government has trained 3,000 healthcare providers in essential maternal and neonatal care in Multan, Muzaffargarh, Bahawalpur, Dera Ghazi Khan and 16 other districts to deliver quality services to women and children, especially mothers and new-borns.
According to official sources, new-born care reference manual and new-born care training guide has been developed to guide the healthcare workers for the health and survival of new-born infants. Sources said the information and skills provided in the manual were essential for those caring for new-borns in the first 28 days of life, whether community-based health workers, nurses, midwives, physicians etc.
According to them, the care of the new-born reference manual provides information and develops skills on essential care for new-born, breastfeeding, new-born resuscitation, care of low birth weight babies and other common new-born problems.
Sources said the Women Health Project (WHP) and Save the Children had been working together to build healthcare providers' capacity. This close public-private partnership will result in improved skills of the healthcare providers and better healthcare services for mother and children all over the country.
Sources said the health management information system was being strengthened to measure the performance of women health plans through women health indicators. They said WHP was a multidimensional project launched with a number of health interventions at the federal, provincial and district level. Trained human resources is key factor in ensuring quality health care, therefore the WHP paid equal attention to this aspect and arranged training for health care providers at all levels, they said.
They further said the project contributed in expanding access to quality care by injecting additional resources in the ongoing activities of national preventive programmes of Primary Health Care, Immunisation, and Nutrition at federal level. Sources further said the WHP had arranged 17,258 short-term training, 100 midterm training (3-6 months) and about 1,293 long-term (1-2 years) training to the healthcare providers. These training were arranged for healthcare providers of all categories and working at all levels.
Moreover, the project arranged permanent campus for the Pakistan Nursing Council (the regulatory body for nursing) and strengthened nursing training institutions through supply of latest referral material and equipment etc.