3,000 midwives to be deployed in unions, upazilas

The government will start appointing 3,000 trained midwives from December, four at each upazila and one at each union, to reduce maternal deaths, officials told a roundtable the daily Prothom Alo and United Nations Population Fund (UNFPA) organised at the newspaper's office yesterday.

UNFPA maternal health expert Shamina Sharmin said the maternal death rate, now 170 per lakh births, must be bought down to 70 by 2030. Only 42 percent of mothers get deliveries done by trained persons, one of the main reasons behind the high death rate, she said.

Noor Hossain Talukder, director general of the Department of Family Planning, said many mothers were reluctant to go to public hospitals for the low quality of healthcare. "The midwives...will have to remain in their workplaces...Otherwise, the programme would not be successful," he said.

Brac University Midwife Programme Director Ismat Bhuiyan suggested equipping midwives with both theoretical and practical skills.