The Kenya Kwanza administration has just turned one year.
This period has been full of commitments to their bold plans to turn around healthcare and deliver the best quality for many Kenyans including mothers and babies.
Maternal and newborn mortality is unacceptably high in low- and middle-income countries, particularly Sub-Saharan Africa (SSA) where Kenya is located geographically.
The latest maternal mortality trends 2000 - 2020 by the World Health Organization (WHO) reported that the SSA region alone accounted for approximately 70 per cent of global maternal deaths with a very high maternal mortality ratio of 545 maternal deaths per 100,000 live births.
This ratio is way beyond the Sustainable Development Goal (SDG) 3 target of less than 70 maternal deaths per 100,000 live births.
Therefore, political leaders in Kenya and other nations in the region have to put in place a plan with a focus on education and skills provided to students before they join the labour force as healthcare service providers.
Midwives play an integral role in averting preventable maternal and perinatal deaths.
The International Confederation of Midwives (ICM) State of the World Midwifery Report 2020 indicates that midwives provide 90 percent of the sexual, reproductive, maternal, newborn, child and adolescent health care across the life course.
Evidence still shows that midwives through their interventions including skilled attendance at birth, provision of emergency obstetrics and newborn care (EMONC) and family planning can avert two-thirds of the global maternal and perinatal deaths by 2035, translating to 4.3 million lives saved annually by 2035.
The national Ministry of Health (MoH) in Kenya has committed to work and achieve key targets of SDG 3 through the Ending Preventable Maternal Mortality (EPMM) and Every Newborn Action Plans (ENAP) by 2030.
Despite the impact of midwives on maternal and newborn health SDGs, they still encounter global challenges in numbers for coverage, education and training, regulation, deployment and limited scope of practice for them to achieve their potential.
These challenges impact Kenya at the county level where healthcare services are domiciled.
Development partners in Kenya have collaborated with the MoH through the Pre-service Taskforce bringing together multiple stakeholders in nursing and midwifery education in the country.
These include pre-service regulatory (Nursing Council of Kenya) and training institutions such as Kenya Medical Training Colleges ( KMTC), private mid-level nursing and midwifery colleges and universities, other research and academic institutions such as the Liverpool School of Tropical Medicine (LSTM) and professional organizations.
The focus has been on strengthening the training institution's infrastructure, curriculum reviews and updates, building the capacity of educators to teach the updated curriculum and monitoring and evaluation of implementation of the interventions, key pillars of WHO’s seven-step action plan for improving quality of midwifery education.
With support from LSTM, the Nursing Council of Kenya and KMTC have reviewed and updated their pre-service nursing and midwifery training syllabi and curricula respectively integrating EmONC recommended by WHO and ICM as essential for all skilled health personnel.
To complete the pathway to impact and save the lives of mothers and newborns in Kenya, specific policy guidelines from the regulators should be in place and implemented by midwifery training institutions.
Ensuring quality midwifery education is critical for health systems improvements, so that ‘no one is left behind’ as 'we put measures to accelerate progress towards the maternal and newborn health SDG targets.'
In the next 4 years, the Kenya Kwanza administration should be guided by local evidence on what works and strive to improve the quality of midwifery education and training in Kenya.
Sustained government investments informed by evidence and research will have a positive impact on Maternal and newborn health outcomes.
This article was written By Prof Charles Ameh, Head of Department of International Public Health at Liverpool School of Tropical Medicine (LSTM).