“Compassion Matters While Saving Lives” ̶ Say Midwives at The IDM 2023

While the country still lacks a big number of midwifery professionals to join such a noble work according to various players, Rwanda’s midwives say the profession requires compassion than reward.

The midwives who spoke to The Inspirer during the celebration of the International Day of Midwife (IDM 2023) claim an insufficient salary comparing to the time investment at the work and the high school fees paid to learn midwifery.

Dr. Aflodis Kagaba, Executive Director of Health Development Initiative (HDI) said that in the last 15 years midwives were a little number, and they are increasing nowadays, which is something to celebrate. He lauds efforts by midwives to continue saving lives of mothers and babies.

“We have organized the IDM in partnership with Rwanda Association of Midwives (RAM), the United Nations Population Fund (UNFPA), Rwanda Biomedical Center (RBC) and the Ministry of Health to recognize efforts and dedication of midwives in saving lives of both mothers and babies. We wanted to recognize their job and have an occasion to discuss about the future of a productive midwifery profession,” says Dr.Kagaba.

About the issue of insufficient number of midwives in the country, Dr. Kagaba suggests that the government should intervene in teaching and training more midwives in order to meet the goal of zero maternal and newborn mortality.

The profession requires dedication

Ruth Tuyisenge, a profession midwife says that this work requires commitment and dedication without relying on money or other rewards.

“Midwifery is a heart-led work and has no expected time line, a midwife has a time to begin the work but has no time to return home, it requires to be passionate and to commit doing that job, when you love it you do not count on yourself, midwives are the people who help God to give life all over the world, to make sure that reproduction is possible. A committed and passionate midwife should practice the work however much it is difficult to do,” Tuyisenge says.

Tuyisenge encourages any midwife across the country to love his/her job.

“At this IDM, midwives should be happy, our job gives us respect in return, I like to be told by a parent in a certain time to see the child who has grown-“see your child, she/he is 2 years old, 5 years old or 10 years old,…” it builds a moral efforts and pride when that child is hugging you after some years helping her/his mother to deliver,” says Tuyisenge.

She adds that beyond anything else like high education degrees, midwifery is a profession that requires humanity. “any degree you might hold, midwifery is a tough job, that requires knowledge, skills and dedication, but also human kind-heartedness, losing that, you may end up failing doing your job even if you may be a PhD or Masters holder, yes, we need skills and knowledge to practice midwifery but compassion matters a lot,” she adds.

Most of the time, a midwife would find it necessary to wait and help a mother to deliver even after his/her working hours, she/he cannot leave her alone in critical health conditions.

“A midwife does not have time to enjoy the meal or sleep, it should be necessary that they call me to help a mother who suffered from Postpartum hemorrhage (PPH), which is a severe bleeding after giving birth, I must immediately leave the table and come to intervene, you keep following with other colleagues to know whether the mother and a baby are healthy even when you entered home,” Tuyisenge says.

Dorothy Bamurange, senior midwife at Rwanda Military Hospital (RMH) has a round 25 years practicing midwifery. She says that there is a hope that the profession will be enough productive in the near future, comparing to the past and the present, whereby midwives were trained from A1 to A0 level.

“Presently we have many midwives who are Bachelors, Masters and PhD holders, the research was improved as well as the salaries, it is something we can celebrate, commending efforts by the government for such achievements,” Bamurange says, adding that they used to practice midwifery without payment in the future.

Hassan Sibomana, Ag. Division Manager of Maternal, Child, and Community Health at Rwanda Biomedical center says that there is a plan ahead to increase the salaries for midwives as they use to work extra hours.

“Extra working hours of a midwife should be supplemented by salary motivation; we plan to increase salaries of them. There is Only 20% of midwives in schools, and with motivation, we believe that the number students will also be increased,” Sibomana says.

Midwifery Center of Excellency to make changes 

Mr. Kwabena Asante-Ntiamoah, UNFPA Representative in Rwanda says that they have made tremendous strides in building advocacy, capacity building and quality services in midwifery profession. He adds that there is need for changing how things used to be done; whereby a new center of excellency is expected to bring significant changes.

“Quality services is very critical, we cannot keep doing same thing the same way and expecting different results, RAM now is an association based on what you contribute. We want to create midwife center of excellence and that is where we want to put our focus. We need to go beyond and work with other international universities to foster capacity building. UNFPA will not let you be on your own, we will continue to work with you to develop and sustain the profession,” Mr. Kabwena said.

“We need to focus on 4 pillars of midwifery which are regulation, education, association and programming. Policy development is also important, we support midwives in Masters and PhD Programs, UNFPA is committed to working with the government of Rwanda to boost the profession of midwifery,” says Frida Tample, Midwifery Specialist at UNFPA.

According to Josephine Murekezi, Chairperson of Rwanda Association of Midwives (RAM), investing in education and giving incentives to the midwives who dedicate time and perform the tasks that are beyond their practices would help to motivate midwives and have a big number of them. 

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