Lessons from Thamini Uhai's birth companionship programme in Tanzania

Added on : 26 May 2020

By: Quality of Care Network Secretariat

This webinar, held on 21st April, 2020,  looked at how a birth companionship programme in Western Tanzania evolved from an innovation in a few facilities to an initiative informing a national policy on respectful care. The webinar will detailed how the Thamini Uhai programme, through a continuous cycle of involving stakeholders and adjusting its implementation modalities set a path on what is feasible at practice, community and policy level to address the experience of care.

Listen to the recording and see the presentations 

Presenters:

  • Dr Nguke Mwakatundu, Executive Director of Thamini Uhai, will present the rationale for the birth companionship programme, the early challenges in implementing it, and its impact on both the women who were to benefit from it, and health workers.
  • Dr Ahmad Makuwani, Assistant Director in the Reproductive and Child Health Section of the Ministry of Health, Community Development, Gender, Elderly and Children will present the impact of the programme at the national level, and how Thamini Uhai’s birth companionship programme’s lessons informed the national policy on gender and respectful care.

See all previous Quality of Care Network’s webinars:

 

Photo: A new mother and a health worker at the Mbeya Regional Referral Hospital in Tanzania, where 300 babies are delivered each month. © UNICEF/UN0270674/van Oorsouw

 

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