Career as a Midwife in Pakistan
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How to become a midwife...Jobs
opportunities for midwife in Pakistan
When writing down
their choices of vocation, few people today opt for midwifery, resulting
in the fact that we now have a large
number of uneducated and
incompetent midwives. Wikipedia defines midwifery as a healthcare
profession, where experts provide prenatal café to expecting mothers
attend to the birth of the infant, and provide postpartum care to the
mother and her child. Practitioners of this profession are known
as midwives, a term used for both men and women. Unfortunately, in Pakistan,
midwives do not enjoy the same or even similar status that other
professionals related to the field of healthcare do. Midwifery as a
profession is not understood in Pakistan. A
professional midwife is equated with a daai (the illiterate woman who
delivers 80 per cent of babies in Pakistan). And because of this
ignorance, midwives in Pakistan do not enjoy the prestige awarded to
them in the developed countries like Europe where 80 per cent of the
babies are delivered by professional midwives.
Required Qualification to become a midwife in Pakistan
In Pakistan those who
want to pursuer a career in midwifery are required to complete their
matriculation and should be under 35 years of age,
Midwifery Courses in Pakistan
Those interested in
the profession can apply to any of the 120 plus institutes offering
midwifery training and which are both in the public and the private
sector. In fact, there are more schools of midwifery in Pakistan than
schools of nursing.
Besides this every
school of nursing has a school of midwifery, and every female nursing
has a school of midwifery, and every female nurse is required to
complete additional one year midwifery training besides a three year
nursing course. This one-year training is compulsory, since without it,
a nurse cannot get a promotion.
But very few nurse
midwives practised midwifery once they enter the practical field. In
the end, midwifery is practised by those who are not nurses and some
schools train only midwives who are not trained nurses. There are three
categories of non-nurse midwives; the lady health visitor, the pupil
midwife and he community midwife.
Organization and Teaching Hospitals offered Training in Midwifery field...Midwifery schools
in Pakistan
In Pakistan, major
organizations that are providing proper midwifery training under the
umbrella of nursing education are the Aga Khan University, Karachi; Dow
Institute of Nursing Karachi, Pakistan Institute of Medical Sciences (PIMS),
Islamabad,; Ziauddin University, Karachi; the University of Health
Sciences, Lahore; Fauji Foundation, Rawalpindi, the National Institute
of Child Health, Karachi and Liaquat National Hospital, Karachi.
Jobs and Career
opportunities
for midwife in Pakistan
A midwife is not
very popular due to the low status given to this profession,
particularly by nurses. In a country like Pakistan where
birth rate is on the rise, one might think that a career in midwifery
would be a profitable and this is true to some extent when it comes to
setting up one’s own clinic.
Besides setting up
their own clinic midwives also have various opportunities to work in
public as well as private hospitals. Some of the many hospitals where
Pakistani nurse midwives are employed in the maternity departments
include the Aga Khan hospital, karachi Sobhraj Maternity home, karachi,
the National Institute of Child Health karachi, Dr Ziauddin Ahmed
hospital karachi Liaquat National hospital, karachi Shifa International
hospital Islamabad; Medicare Hospital and maternity home, Kohat and
Fauji Foundation hospital, Rawalpindi.
Not only does a
midwife has scope for progress, but if she is a nurse with midwifery
training, then there are plenty of opportunities to move up the ladder.
Unfortunately, the quality of present training does not allow or prepare
midwives to function independently even at the national level. Let
alone at the international level. And even though, the nurse midwives do
get jobs in a few other countries, they do not function as midwives
there.
There was a time
when midwives had no voice and no platform of their own. But today,
they have a professional organization and hopefully it will improve the
situation of midwifery education and practice.
The bottom line is
that a lot needs to be done to create awareness about the role and
functions of a midwife at very high levels. Only then will the career
prospects and reputation of this profession gain a respectable status in
our society.
