ABSTRACT
<b>Objective</b><BR> In West African countries where the maternal mortality rate is high compared to the rest of the world, international assistance is conducted actively to improve the birth rate with the presence of Skilled Birth Attendant (SBA). However, few documents describe which workforces are considered as SBA and which work in delivery care actually on site. This paper summarizes the workforce engaged in delivery care and clarifies which are the occupations considered as SBA in West African French-speaking countries. <BR><b>Method</b><BR> Literature review was conducted based on information from official documents related to health workforce in 7 West African French-speaking countries: Benin, Burkina Faso, Ivory Coast, Mali, Niger, Senegal and Togo, and the respective governmental websites. To determine the professional categories as SBA in each country, Demographic and Health Survey (DHS) was referred.<BR><b>Result</b><BR> This research reveals that the workforces which engage in delivery care in the target countries are nurse, midwife, auxiliary nurse, auxiliary midwife, paramedical personnel, obstetric nurse, primary medical staff, matron, community health worker and traditional birth attendants. Titles and definitions of health workforce however vary in official documents issued by the government even of one country. In DHS Report, nurse and midwife are considered as SBA in all countries, but other professional categories vary in each country. In many countries, professional nurse and midwife categorized by WHO are included in SBA, while community health worker is not. Matron, which is a kind of community health worker, is considered as SBA exceptionally in Burkina Faso and Mali.<BR><b>Conclusion</b><BR> None of the countries clearly define which professional categories are considered as SBA in official documents. Urgent definition of SBA is required and simultaneously the management system of health workforce and its uniformity for description in documents are needed. It is also suggested that various SBA-related policy assistance for the reduction of the maternal mortality are conducted without clear definition of SBA in each country. Thus it is reaffirmed that the policy assistance must be planned with adequate understanding in health workforce, based on appropriate selections of workers and well considered methods of intervention in the concerned field.
ABSTRACT
The Dispatch of Japan Overseas Cooperation Volunteers (JOCV), a program of Japan International Cooperation Agency(JICA), performed the 40th anniversary foundation in 2005. About half of 3,703 volunteers of the health and hygiene field dispatched by the end of August, 2004 are nurses. The tendencies of recent JOCV are increase of the number of volunteers based on liberal arts, increase of volunteers with high educational background and increase of the number of female volunteers.<br>The volunteers who live and work with local people do not remain in simple man power, but show a faithful work and a manner as a careerist. There are a problem to be able to see, discovery of a local method simply because they work among the people, and we should pay attention to a characteristic and the effectiveness of such a volunteers' activity more.<br>By investigation(n=397) for volunteer nurses, 36.5% receive higher education after return home. It is expected that volunteers study after return home and then engage in international health focusing on a public level as well as upper persons in developing countries.
ABSTRACT
The need for medical team care is increasing because of advances in medical care and changing national needs. For more than 20 years medical students at the University of Tsukuba have participated in medical team care practice before bedside learning during the third trimester of their 4th year. The objective of this practice is to understand patients from the nurses' point of view and to learn cooperation between doctors and co-medical staff. We analyzed students reports to study what they had learned. A total of 326 items in 11 categories were specified in the free-response part of the reports. The largest category was “nursing/nurses” and the second largest was “communication/human relations.” The results show that the students learned points other than the General Instruction Objectives and that the practice was extremely effective.