AC nursing students leave lasting impact in rural Tanzania
Posted on Monday, June 6th, 2016
Two years ago five professors and 18 students from Algonquin College’s nursing faculty worked with CPAR Tanzania’s Maternal & Child Health staff to deliver a program in two hospitals and five health centres in Bunda District. These photos were taken two weeks ago where their impact is still evident, actively and excitedly talked about, and the tools and knowledge used every day.
The objective of the project was to train birth attendants in the essential skills of newborn resuscitation, with the aim of having at least one person skilled in neonatal resuscitation at the birth of every baby. The plan was to enable local providers to both care for patients and to have the knowledge and equipment to train additional birth attendants.
“The program was delivered successfully and it attracted the attention of the District Commissioner, the top political leader in the district,” said Dee Ucci, Manager of Donor Relations and Public Engagement.
A key concept in the training pertained to The Golden Minute. Within one minute of birth, a baby should be breathing well or should be ventilated with a bag and mask. The Golden Minute identifies the steps that a birth attendant must take immediately after birth to evaluate the baby and stimulate breathing.
The HBB training package that the Algonquin team provided included pictorial-based learning materials including a LearnerWorkbook, Action Plan wall poster and Facilitator Flip Chart, all in Swahili. The training equipment includes a very realistic newborn simulator with the ability to imitate an umbilical pulse to monitor the baby’s heart rate. The practical equipment, which was provided to health facilities throughout Bunda District, is a simple and durable bulb suction and bag-mask ventilator that can be cleaned by boiling, which you can see in the photo collage here:
This post was adapted from the Facebook page for the CPAR (Canadian Physicians for Aid & Relief), to find out more about CPAR and the work they do visit their website here.
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