Friday, March 29, 2024

Paramount Chief Chitimukulu expresses concern at reports of women giving birth at home

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Chitimukulu

Paramount Chief Chitimukulu of the Bemba people says he is concerned with reports suggesting that elderly expectant mothers are giving birth at home because they avoid being attended to by young Mid-wives.

The Mwine Lubemba said pregnant women in most rural areas in his chiefdom feel shy to be attended to by young mid-wives adding that it is against the tradition and culture.

Paramount Chief Chitimukulu said this on Thursday when Health Minister Chitalu Chilufya paid a courtesy call on him.

Paramount Chief Chitimukulu has since appealed to the Ministry of Health to consider deploying mature mid-wives in health facilities situated in rural areas.

Meanwhile, Health Minister Chitalu Chilufya has assured the Mwine-Lubemba that his Ministry will ensure that all mid-wives deployed to rural areas are culturally sensitive.

Radio Mano

12 COMMENTS

  1. True, in some areas like Chikankata even youngmen practice midwifery. Elderly women aren’t comfortable with that, they even shy away from radiographers when they go for a scan

    • No Zambian Nurse should be retired. It has to be voluntary retirement. The older they get the more valuable they become. A 75 year-old nurse or Clinical Officer has enough energy to run a rural clinic.
      HH’s government should allow nurses to work until their harms start dropping babies.
      True some of these 25 year-old nurses of today are just children. Some they are working with cellphones googling or watching on YouTube on how to deliver a child.
      Worse sometimes they put up questions on WhatsApp groups.

  2. I don’t think sending mature midwives is a sustainable solution with all due respect. This is because what will we do if we run out of mature midwives? And what do you define as mature? However, I would be advising my party pf to consider looking into sensitisation of our friends up north so that they understand that age has nothing to do with competence. Hope everyone had a nice weekend. For me I did and I am just suffering from a terrible hangover. Kafue things. Kz

  3. Its so sad that 56 years after independence,we still have to send medical practitioners trained in Lusaka to go and work in rural areas.How much does it cost to build community health training centers in rural areas? Instead you are buying a $100 million Presidential jet.
    In fact ,the chief should have asked government to establish centers in his chiefdom to train mature aged midwives.After all these women are already doing the job but lack formal training . Send trainers to teach these local women modern midwifery methods instead of sending people from Lusaka.
    The Chief and government can provide better solutions than that cheap grade 7 type of thinking.

  4. Let’s analyse the subject and avoid pointing fingers. We are talking about elderly women shunning young people’s health services .

  5. I find it pretty interesting that KZ has now decided to have a public online presence and commenting on everything since he was relieved of his position at State House. Might he be eyeing public office?
    Back to the matter at hand, KZ the older women are not saying that young mid-wives are incompetent or lack knowledge or experience. It has more to do with the culture sensitivity of being attended to and being seeing naked by the ‘younger sisterns’ worse still in some case ‘brothers’. Also just because it was raised by the Bemba chief in the north does not mean it is unique to Northern province only. No doubt older women in other parts of the country will have similar sentiments.

  6. We need to understand that times do change and certain norms and traditions should not remain static but change with times. A medical practitioner abides by certain ethics and professional conduct taught to them during training. I feel this suggestion from Mwine Lubemba will just bring complications. Then let the Mwinelubemba also suggest that a 20 year old nurse can not administer an injection to a 55 year old male or female adult.Some times diseases affect us in sensitive areas and medical ethics require that such an area be looked at. Are you always going to demand for an elderly person to attend to you. If this is the case how are these medical practitioners going to gain the much needed experience. Should i refuse to go to the operational theater simply because the Doctor with…

  7. ……..the doctor with the right skills and competence is young. When it comes to matters of life and death it does not matter who attends or cures me and age is not a factor here. Medical personnel are trained to keep their confidentiality and they see a lot of things in Hospitals. At one time i suffered from hemorrhoids and the young nurse i found at the Hospital demanded to make an observations. This was despite the deference in age. You mean i should have started looking for some one older than that young man. No lets allow professionals work according to their professional ethics. These people get trained and are qualified to do just that. Allow nurses and Doctors t work freely.

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