Don’t forget the midwives and their significant contribution to health care

I read with keen interest the editorial “Shabby treatment of health workers” (4/27/23) as it was published while I was in Lahug, Cebu City, taking part as the live voiceover for the 24th National General Assembly of the Philippine League of Government and Private Midwives, Inc. (PLGPMI).

Held from April 26 to 28, 2023, the event was attended by 3,200-plus midwives from Luzon, Visayas, and Mindanao. Excluded from the tally were even more midwives who participated virtually. Deprived of three successive general assemblies that would have otherwise been held in 2020, 2021, and 2022 if not for the COVID pandemic, they came to the Waterfront Hotel and Convention Center in full force to listen in rapt attention to the distinguished speakers who discussed wide-ranging topics related to their most noble profession.

Being there to introduce and listen up close to the speakers reminded me of the article published in the Inquirer “Young Afghan women train as midwives for out-of-reach villages” (News, 3/8/23) that I read a few months ago. It reported on how young women are being trained to be midwives as the terrain, topography, and remoteness of the places they come from in now Taliban-run Afghanistan make it difficult for pregnant women to be transported to a health center where they can give birth in ideal conditions. It cited the case of a pregnant woman in labor whose baby boy did not survive as she struggled to walk in the middle of the night to her in-laws’ house, while her husband was desperately looking for an ambulance which, sadly, arrived much too late in that mountainous province of Bamiyan.

That very plight of pregnant women in some parts of Afghanistan is also a reality in many far-off areas of our country. In an archipelago of 7,641 islands where many of its citizens who reside in the remotest of places have no access to nearby hospitals or health facilities, it is essential for each barangay to have at least one midwife to readily help a woman in labor deliver her baby. Ideally, as per the Magna Carta for Public Health Workers, it should be one midwife per 5,000 people.

In her talk, former health assistant secretary Cecil Banca-Santos said: “We (midwives) are the most visible and accessible health professionals, particularly in the GIDAs (geographically isolated and disadvantaged areas). We don’t mind trekking mountainous terrain, crossing rivers and lakes, immersing in rebel-infested areas, riding habal-habal, and riding a motorcycle or scooter to answer the call of duty.”

Considering the lengths they would go to render their service during difficult situations, as well as their significant contribution to the entire health care system, midwives should not be taken for granted or forgotten during important discussions about the welfare of Filipino health workers and medical frontliners. Indeed, as the PLGPMI battle cry goes, “The midwives are worth investing in.”

In the open forum segments of the three-day assembly, some participants did not just ask the speakers questions, but also raised several concerns, one of which the aforementioned editorial brought up—the COVID-19 allowance and health emergency allowance, which some of them have also not yet received to this very day.

The government should give these midwives not just respect but the allowances and other benefits promised to them. They have waited long enough.

Claude Lucas C.

Despabiladeras

claudelucasdespa@gmail.com