Midwives duties to cover wider spectrum - Minister

COLOMBO: The present nature of duties of the Public Health Midwives would be expanded on a wider spectrum to cover other clinical areas as well, according to Healthcare and Nutrition Minister Nimal Siripala de Silva.

The Minister of Health was the chief guest at the distribution of motorbikes to midwives of the Colombo district. All midwives working in the Hanwella, Homagama, Kolonnawa, Padukka, Piliyandala and Kaduwela MoH areas under the Colombo regional health division were given motorbikes by the Health Minister at a ceremony held at Colombo Town Hall recently.

The Minister said that the duties of midwives were confined to childcare and maternity clinics for a long period.

Those days mothers gave birth at homes and the midwives paid a key role in this area of health activity. But with the new world trend, the life pattern of the community had changed and as a result now we could see an upward trend in the expansion of non-communicable diseases such as diabetes and heart ailments.

The health situation in the country had been further aggravated with more and more suicides and mental disorder. Lack of knowledge and the unwillingness to change the life pattern on the part of the public had paved the way for this situation.

He said that the community health system was the only way to tackle this new menace. "We expect the midwives to advise parents on the need of maintaining a good rapport with their young children thereby reducing the mental distress of the children. This would help reduce suicides.

The Minister said, presently interaction between the people is at a minimal low. People tend to compete with machines and they devote no time for their health. As a result people very often get all types of illnesses at a younger age itself.

Health Minister Nimal Siripala de Silva opined that counselling would be a great readdress to those type of illnesses.

Therefore he said that action would be taken to provide training to midwives in the field of mental health and other needy areas as they were the health workers who directly deal with the society at the grassroot level.

Their knowledge in these areas of health activities would help to educate the parents especially the mothers on maintaining a good health in a family.