More than 30 nurses and midwifes benefit from the professional training and exchange of experiences with Georgia

05.06.2016

Prishtina, 6 June 6 2016-

We are happy to announce a successful ending of the professional training and workshop with the expert from Georgia on the importance of patient empowerment and communication through Women’s Health Resource Centers for all the nurses, midwifes and family doctors engaged in those centers.

“Georgia and Kosovo share similar health systems and challenges to its maternal and newborn health outcomes. Quality improvement initiatives, including the creation of Women’s Health Resource Centers, have led to dramatic improvements in survival rates for mothers and their babies in Georgia, all this as a result of facilitating the patient-doctor communication and patient empowerment” – says Dr. Tinatin Gagua, visiting Asst. Professor from Georgia.

In this professional training, hosted by Action for Mothers and Children, approximately 30 nurses, midwifes and family doctors from Prishtina, Ferizaj, Sterpce, Mitrovica (where current women’s health resource centers exist) , as well as Gjilan, Obiliq, Prizren and Kacanik (where the new women’s health resource centers are being planned to be open) have participated. Dr. Tinatin addressed the medical community from UCCK, regional hospitals, family medicine centers around Kosovo as well as medical students in the Telemedicine Center of Kosova with the lecture “Pathway to Improving Maternal & Newborn Health: Lessons from Georgia”, discussing the process that has led to 50% reduction in postpartum hemorrhage and to 90% of newborn receiving essential newborn care, all while achieving a 25% cost reduction per delivery. Dr. Tinatin also drove paralles for adoption in Kosovo.

“The Women’s Health Resource Centers are an initiative of Action for Mothers and Children, which offer free counseling for women and their partners on antenatal and postnatal care in a comfortable relaxing room. This is what Georgia has done as well, and during these days we learned on their experiences and the pathway that Kosovo should follow to improve the maternal and child health outcomes” – adds Albiona Beha from Action for Mothers and Children.

Kosovo continues to have high maternal and infant mortality rates. One of the causes of this high mortality rate is also lack of evidence-based information on nutrition, antenatal care, delivery process, and newborn care. In Women’s Health Resource Centers more that 2,500 women have benefited from evidence-based information received on antenatal and postnatal care. Evidence-based information is cruical in helping improve maternal and child health outcomes and this has been proven in many countries around the world. This is the path that Kosovo is aiming through Women’s Health Reource Centers as well.

This important training and visit has been made possible thorugh the support of Czech Embassy in Kosovo and is supported by the Department for Maternal and Child Health from the Ministry of Health and the World Health Organization, office in Prishtina.