AFTER BEING closed for 26 years, the Spanish Town School of Midwifery reopen its doors last Thursday. Already the institution has 21 students registered to start its training programme.
The Minister of Health, John Junor, while addressing the reopening ceremony, told the students that they needed to look beyond the curriculum. He said the training of midwives needed to become more multi-faceted in keeping with the demand of the times.
The midwifery school was officially opened during a brief ceremony held on the school grounds. function which was visited by Minister of Health, John Junor and other persons within the health ministry and National Health Fund saw the students being given lecture by senior personnel in the midwifery profession. They were told that the job is one that they will learn not only in the classroom. They were implored to take the profession back to its former glory.
In her remarks, Matron of the Spanish Town Hospital, Mrs. Valda Lawrence-Campbell, who is also the president of the Nurses Association of Jamaica, implored the students that they should always live in unity as that is how they will strengthen the profession of nursing.
He lauded the effort of the National Health Fund who has committed $11.4 million for equipment and training over the next two years and $363 million for the training and equipment in the health sector for over the next three years. He said that the country is currently short of 261 midwife and the 21 is just a drop in the bucket. He said that the $363 million is still not adequate as Jamaica needs far more, as "We are place in a position where other countries are attracted to health professionals, as they are highly trained and as such we need to train far more than we actually need".
He expressed the views that currently maternal death is 102 - 106 out of every 100,000 birth, 24 babies died in still birth. The mortality rate for babies is 24 out of every 1000. He said that this need to change, as the millennium development goal which is an international help body which is set up to cut mortality rate and birth complications by 75%. It means then that Jamaica will have to do far more in reducing this problem. He laud the effort and hope that the starting of training will be a way forward to dealing with mortality and birth problems.
The facility was opened in 1976 but was ordered close in 1979.
