Training for district level doctors and nurses to handle mothers and newborns health emergency

Save the Children has been organizing a series of training for doctors and nurses from six district level hospitals in Yen Bai, Dac Lac and Ca Mau as part of its plan to set up newborn care units in these hospitals.

The plan aims to provide emergency treament for mothers and newborns with complication during and after birth at first place. Many cases in these hospitals are often transferred to provincial or central hospitals for medical intervention.

Twelve doctors and 24 nurses are provided with a three-month training on technical intervention skills and practicing lessons in order to run and manage the later newborn care units at their hospitals.

The training’s trainers are leading doctors and skills nurses from central hospitals in Hanoi and HCM City. Participants to the trainings have also had opportunities to practise at central hospitals in the two cities under the guidance by the trainers.

“I am grateful to Save the Children for providing me and my colleagues to participate in the trainings, especially the practising opportunity. The doctors and nurses in HCM City’s hospital are so helpful to show us their experience and help us practice”, said Doctor Ngo Minh Hoa from Ca Mau.

“I am directly guided on how to monitor cases of pre-matured birth, blood infection, respiratory failures and so on”, he said.

 “I feel more confident to handle the complications .I hope we will be provided with more equipment that we are in short of so we could do our job better”.

 The trainings are part of the Save the Children’s maternal and newborn care programme which aims to reduce the maternal and newborn mortality rate in the country, especially in disadvantaged areas.

The programme’s intervention includes the improvement of maternal and newborn care emergency services; supporting the access to and increasing the availability of health services for mothers and newborns at all levels; and strengthening management and generating social support for maternal and newborn survival in the country.

Early this year, Save the Children International reported that nearly 12,000 babies in Vietnam die each year during childbirth or within the first day each year. Many of them could be saved if the mother and baby had access to health care and had a skilled midwife.