More jobless nurses eyed as rural midwives

MANILA, Philippines—Congress should build up the Nurses Assigned in Rural Service (NARS) Project toward mobilizing a larger number of unemployed nurses, this time as village midwives, a lawmaker from Mindanao said.

“It would make a lot of sense to expand the NARS, and possibly tap an additional 10,000 nurses for deployment as midwives in municipalities with the highest maternal and infant mortality rates,” Cotabato Representative Emmylou Taliño-Mendoza said in a statement sent to media outfits.

“This way, we will save thousands of mothers and infants who risk death every year due to pregnancy and birth-related complications,” Taliño-Mendoza said.

She said lack of access to skilled delivery attendants has been one of the factors contributing to the unacceptably high number of mothers and infants being lost during pregnancy and childbirth.

“In the countryside and even in urban slums, destitute mothers still give birth at home, often without trained attendants, because they cannot afford to go to maternity clinics or hospitals,” she lamented.

Nurses who serve as midwives under the NARS could gain specialized training that would later help them secure more lucrative jobs here and overseas, Taliño-Mendoza said.

“In America, for instance, there is growing demand for certified nurse-midwives. They are considered advanced practitioners there, with specialized education, training, and experience in both nursing and midwifery,” she added.

Taliño-Mendoza is one of the backers of the proposed Reproductive Health, Responsible Parenthood, and Population Development Act.

The bill seeks to raise public awareness of reproductive health, advance responsible parenthood, and improve access to safe and modern family planning methods in order to reduce unwanted pregnancies and lessen the risk of both maternal and infant mortality.

Government health surveys have shown that 162 mothers die out of every 10,000 births, and that 14 percent of all deaths among Filipino women may be attributed to pregnancy or to childbirth-related causes.

Three out of every four maternal deaths happen to very young women 15 to 19 years old, according to government studies.

Meanwhile, the country’s infant mortality is also unusually high at 24 out of every 1,000 live births.

The country has been producing around 100,000 nurses every year, but only some 12,000 of them are able to obtain gainful employment here and abroad.

From July 2008 to July 2009 alone, the Professional Regulation Commission issued licenses to 99,837 new registered nurses.

The government has so far temporarily engaged 10,000 nurses under the NARS. The project allows nurses to serve in depressed municipalities for six months in exchange for a monthly allowance of P8,000. –INQUIRER.net