Latest news with #Midwifery
Zawya
19-05-2025
- Health
- Zawya
World Health Organization (WHO) Representative pays courtesy call on WHO Collaborating Centre for Nursing and Midwifery Development at the University of Botswana School of Nursing
On 28 April 2025, WHO Country Representative, Dr. Fabian Ndenzako, paid a courtesy visit to the University of Botswana School of Nursing, a WHO Collaborating Centre (WHOCC) for Nursing and Midwifery Development since 1990. He was accompanied by Dr. Juliet Bataringaya, Health Systems Advisor, and Ms. Boingotlo Ramontshonyana, Focal Point for District Health System Strengthening. Dr. Ndenzako was welcomed by Professor Magowe, Dean of the Faculty of Health Sciences; Professor Phaladze, Deputy Dean; Dr. Samuel Matula, Head of the School of Nursing; Ms. Mosidi Mokotedi, WHOCC Coordinator; and other faculty members. In her welcome remarks, Prof. Magowe provided an overview of the Faculty of Health Sciences, which encompasses the School of Nursing, School of Allied Health Professions, School of Pharmacy, and School of Public Health. She highlighted that the School of Nursing, established in 1978, is the oldest within the faculty. Its core mission is to produce highly skilled and well-rounded health professionals to serve Botswana, the African continent, and beyond. The school aligns its undergraduate and graduate training with international standards and promotes robust research to inform evidence-based curricula. The faculty also offers graduate programs, including master's and PhD degrees. Dr. Matula elaborated on the evolution of the School of Nursing, noting that it began as the Department of Nursing Education in 1978 and became a full-fledged school in 2007. The school offers both undergraduate and postgraduate degrees, including the Bachelor of Nursing Science and the Master of Nursing. A PhD programme is also expected to be launched soon. Notably, the Master of Nursing in Gerontology and Palliative Care was introduced in August 2024. Designated in 1990, the School of Nursing is a WHO Collaborating Centre for Nursing and Midwifery Development in Sub-Saharan Africa. Among its contributions, the school developed a model for home-based care that has been shared regionally. It has played a vital role in introducing nursing education in higher institutions across the East, Central, and Southern Africa (ECSA) region, and has supported the establishment of National Nurses Associations and Nursing and Midwifery Councils. The school has been instrumental in standardizing nursing and midwifery curricula and strengthening regulatory frameworks. The school is a member of key regional networks such as the Consortium for Higher Education in Nursing and Midwifery in Africa (CHENMA) and the Eastern, Central, and Southern Africa College of Nursing (ECSACON). It has mobilized resources for projects such as the Adolescent Health and HIV/AIDS Project and the Project for Nursing Leadership. Collaborations extend beyond the government to include the University of Pennsylvania, Rutgers University, the University of Michigan, the Cancer Association, and various NGOs. From 2018 to 2022, the WHOCC focused on strengthening the role of nursing and midwifery in reducing the burden of Non-Communicable Diseases (NCDs), promoting health and wellness across the lifespan, and enhancing maternal, newborn, child, and adolescent health services. These efforts were carried out in collaboration with other WHOCCs, civil society organizations, and development partners. Under its current designation (March 2022 to February 2026), the WHOCC is working towards three core objectives: 1. Conducting collaborative research on the impact of the COVID-19 pandemic on the nursing and midwifery workforce. 2. Strengthening nursing and midwifery leadership in line with WHO's Strategic Directions for Nursing and Midwifery (2021–2025). 3. Promoting rehabilitative and palliative care services within the context of revitalized Primary Health Care. Dr. Matula reported notable progress. For the COVID-19-related research, the school conducted literature reviews and co-authored three publications. It also assessed leadership gaps among nurses, with one publication underway. Leadership development efforts included benchmarking training qualifications and materials used in Botswana against international resources, such as those from the South Pacific GNWHOCCNM and Kamuzu University of Health Sciences. A pilot leadership workshop was conducted, and its outcomes documented. To strengthen rehabilitative and palliative care, a needs assessment was carried out, leading to the development of a specialized Oncology and Palliative Nursing curriculum. Dr. Matula acknowledged that while implementation was delayed by prolonged COVID-19 response efforts and funding constraints, global WHOCC networks and partnerships with communities and stakeholders remain valuable enablers for progress. In his remarks, Dr. Ndenzako commended the School of Nursing for its 35-year tenure as a WHO Collaborating Centre. He noted that Botswana currently hosts two WHOCCs, the second being the Botswana National HIV Drug Resistance Laboratory, designated in 2023. He praised the school's research outputs and emphasized their importance in informing WHO Ndenzako highlighted the changing global health financing landscape, which calls for stronger partnerships to advance the health agenda. He encouraged the school to document and publish its 35-year journey to share lessons with other institutions. He reaffirmed WHO's commitment to supporting the WHOCC's continued efforts. In closing, Dr. Sebego thanked WHO for its ongoing collaboration and underscored the need to sustain and strengthen the partnership. Distributed by APO Group on behalf of World Health Organization (WHO), Botswana.
Irish Times
09-05-2025
- Entertainment
- Irish Times
Who you gonna call? Time for the Midwife Cinematic Universe to shine
As pitches go, it sounds familiar. A large, evolving cast of characters is anchored by a group of noble, dedicated heroes equipped with uniforms, custom vehicles and superpowers. In each instalment they unite to defeat common enemies, battle new threats and save humanity. Since 2012, when they made their screen debut, they have been drawn into frequent races against time in which the stakes are all too clear. They don't always wear capes, but they often have one on standby. Look, the Marvel Cinematic Universe (MCU) has had a good run, but we have the (Call the) Midwife Cinematic Universe now. Who needs Iron Man when there's Sister Monica Joan? She's much more fun. That's possibly not the rationale behind the BBC's decision, announced this week, to commission both a Call the Midwife feature film and a spin-off prequel series set during the second World War. READ MORE Still, these baby steps towards transforming a television ratings magnet into a midwifery-based franchise – a new MCU – are intriguing. Has the series up to the end of the 15th season, spanning the years 1957 to 1971, which will be shown in 2026, merely been Phase One in the Maternity Saga? I think we need to be told. There are a few unknowns here and a few misconceptions. I groan when I recall the continuity announcer who introduced one episode with the words 'and now for something more sedate'. The process of bringing this hit Sunday-night period drama to the big screen will inevitably be compared to the journey made by Downton Abbey, but Call the Midwife is a very different beast. RTÉ One is still on the 13th season, with next week's episode serving up a fairly typical mix of tetanus, slum landlords and destabilising grief. The 14th run, which aired on BBC One earlier this year, was notable for the loss of Nigel the beloved cat, which admittedly sounds like the ultimate teatime plot until you learn he has succumbed to Weil's disease, an infection spread by rat urine, and that Nurse Rosalind is also starting to feel a touch unwell. Call the Midwife surfaces the miseries and outrages of the 20th century in a way few other programmes do. I'm still getting over a fifth-season episode that featured both a string of vicious street attacks on women and a kitchen-floor uterine inversion that really should have been avoided, even in 1961. The first episode of series nine, which aired in the innocent month of January 2020, was another roller coaster. It gave us bed bugs, diphtheria, a callous priest, a baby found in a dustbin and, for light relief, the death of Winston Churchill. In the 12th season, set in 1968, handyman Fred and haberdashery owner Violet argue about a tin of bright purple paint, which seems innocuous, yet before the end credits it has been used to daub xenophobic signs on a racist march stoked by Enoch Powell's Rivers of Blood speech. A Call The Midwife film and prequel TV series set during the second World War are being made, the BBC has announced. Photograph: BBC But the Christmas specials, those will be all heartwarming carols and uplifting festive births, right? Not quite. The 2021 edition, for instance, found space for intrapartum haemorrhage, infant heroin withdrawal and the treatment of a swollen eye with leeches. This episode was swiftly followed by one in which Nurse Nancy, played by the Irish actor Megan Cusack, has a surprise encounter with a gangrenous leg. None of this is to say that Call the Midwife isn't heartwarming and uplifting. Nor does it undercut its achievement to conclude that however stark and grim its depictions of societal problems, the reality of mid-century life in Poplar, in east London, was almost certainly less kind. But the secret of its enduring popularity isn't complicated. It's set in a world of disease, deprivation and rampant property development in which women work with other women, and some men, to make things just a little better. And, despite its many traumas, the show isn't visually graphic. It doesn't need to be – it's all there in the writing. Heidi Thomas, who created it, doesn't seem to be short of ideas about how to extend its life, notwithstanding the fact that the order of nuns at its heart no longer practised midwifery in that part of London after 1976. [ The Marvel Cinematic Universe used to be pretty cool. Why is it sliding towards mediocrity? Opens in new window ] The regular series – which will have a 16th season 'in due course' – is already a powerful reminder that even in the most chaotic of circumstances, amid the most indifferent of external forces, babies continue to be born. A wartime prequel, with bombs raining down, can reinforce that theme. It is, after all, one that remains dismally relevant today. Meanwhile, the cast will be hotfooting it out of Poplar for their big feature debut. If I had to guess, I'd say it will lure an audience to cinemas at least as fast as a guest character with the line 'I'm not having the baby in the lift' will have her baby in the lift.
