Mission NLS complete

The last two weeks have absolutely rocketed past. We have been super busy with our NLS course, running another 3 rounds, and training 80 people in total. The courses seemed to get better and better and it was really lovely to have our local trainers on board, able to translate into Amharic. I’m sure it really improved the understanding of some of the participants who really didn’t speak much English.

I particularly enjoyed working with the local trainers because most of them were young women, and women still have a pretty subservient place within Ethiopian society. There are very few women in positions of power here and the traditional culture is for the wife to serve her husband. Consequently a lot of our female trainers were really apprehensive about the idea of standing up in front of colleagues to give presentations. However with a bit of encouragement and the reassurance that we wouldn’t have asked them to do it if we didn’t think they would do a really good job, they all did us proud and seemed to really relish the opportunity, to make things a bit better where they work. A lot of them seem to have gone back to their hospitals and health centres really motivated to improve things which makes me feel like we’ve achieved our aims.

We have already visited one of the hospitals at their request, and made plans to spend an afternoon there, making sure staff are confident to use the equipment they have that was not covered in the NLS course. The Helping Babies Breathe newborn life support posters which were donated by UNICEF Ethiopia and given out at the first course were proudly displayed in frames on the walls about the newborn resuscitation station just as they should be so some things are working!

The next step will be to ensure all the senior staff have been trained. This was requested by one of our local trainers, who said that she was delighted to have learnt about newborn resuscitation, but had come up against some resistance from senior colleagues at work who still think the best way to resuscitate a baby is to swing it upside down by its feet (seriously!). We’ll need to tread carefully with this one so as not to cause offence and are working with the University to devise a plan.

Finally I’d love to be able to persuade the regional health board that they should fund this training to be run every few months with local staff so that all the health care workers who regularly deliver babies update their skills every couple of years. This might be a long shot be we’ll see what we can do.....