ABSTRACT
TITLE: What Happens To Advanced Midwives After Their Training?
OBJECTIVES: The primary objective of this study was to explore how many Advanced
Midwives who graduated between 2000 and 2004 are still working in public sector
facilities. The second objective was to determine of those working in the public sector,
how many are still ding clinical works in maternity wards. The third objective was to
explore the reasons why the Advanced Midwives who left did and where they had gone
to followed by the fourth objective which was to explore the reasons why those who
stayed back did, the fifth objective was to see whether age, level of facility, rural or urban
and province impacted on whether they have remained in the facility and the Sixth
objective was to document the recommendations given by the Advanced Midwives on
how to keep Advanced Midwives using heir skill in the public sector.
STUDY POPULATION: Graduates of Chris Hani Baragwanath nursing college and the
University of Johannesburg nursing college for a period of five years 2000 to 2004
METHODS: Following Ethics approval, the two nursing colleges were approached to
give the contact details of their graduates between 2000 and 2004. All the advanced
Midwives who graduated within these years from the two nursing colleges totaling 320
graduates were communicated with. While some of the advanced midwives whose
contact telephone numbers were available were communicated with telephonically, other
advanced midwives who had no contact telephone numbers were forwarded the
questionnaires by post, including a formal letter containing full explanation of the
purpose of the research and the confidentiality of the information they were asked to
give. A self addressed envelope was included in the letter to enable those who wished to
reply to easily reply without incurring any cost. These questionnaires were completed by
the advanced midwives and sent back to the researcher.
RESULTS: 69% of the respondents were still working in the public sector while an
alarming 31% had moved from the public sector to the private sector. 89% were found to
be doing clinical works in the maternity wards while 11% were no longer doing clinical
works and found to have either moved to hospital management within the same hospital
or moved to ICU and Theater departments. Reasons for Advanced Midwives leaving the
public sector facility to the private sector ranged from lack of recognition of Advanced
Midwives by the government, lack of scarce skill allowances for doing a one year post
basic training in Advanced Midwifery, lack of increment in salary generally, poor
working conditions, lack of staff to not being allowed to practice independently and as a
result had moved into the private sector where life was a lot better according to them. The
reasons why the Advanced Midwives are still working in the public health sector ranged
from the fact that the facilities they were working was near their homes, their passion for
midwifery, their quest to upgrade themselves to the fact that they have been working as
Advanced Midwives for so long.
Their were no association between the age, rural/urban and province to whether they have
remained in the facilities, with the following P-values (P= 0.135, 0.174 AND 0.779)
respectively, however an association was found between the level of facilities the
Advanced Midwives worked with whether they have remained in the public facility with
P-value (P= 0.001) Therefore Advanced Midwives working in smaller hospitals were
more likely to remain in that hospital as against those working in bigger hospitals. The
recommendations the advanced midwives had on how to keep Advanced Midwives using
their midwifery skills in the public sector ranged from recognizing Advanced Midwives
in the public sector, in terms of provision of scarce skill allowances for Advanced
Midwives like is the case with the ICU and theater nurses who are paid higher than their
counterparts in other departments, increasing their salaries in general, improving their
working conditions, increasing the number of staff per midwifery unit, to allowing them
practice independently in terms of exploring their expertise without the doctor’s
interferences.
CONCLUSION: Although many Advanced Midwives had left the public sector to private
sector facilities, a good number of them have remained and more so, many have
continued using their Advanced Midwifery skills in the maternity wards. Among the
Advanced Midwives working in the public sector there are high levels of dissatisfaction,
which was reflected in the reasons why they intend to leave. Therefore there is urgent
need to address the recommendations given by these Advanced Midwives themselves; by
so doing greater number of those who intend to leave the public sector would be
compelled to stay back.
| Identifer | oai:union.ndltd.org:netd.ac.za/oai:union.ndltd.org:wits/oai:wiredspace.wits.ac.za:10539/6759 |
| Date | 16 March 2009 |
| Creators | Iloabanafor, Chinee Obiamaka |
| Source Sets | South African National ETD Portal |
| Language | English |
| Detected Language | English |
| Type | Thesis |
| Format | application/pdf, application/pdf |
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