\n<\/p>\n
Visa rejections have threatened progress on mother and baby health after experts from struggling countries were barred from talks, global midwife leaders have said.<\/p>\n
Politicians, donors and UN agencies convened this week at the International Confederation of Midwives (ICM) congress in Lisbon, Portugal, a key conference to discuss the millions of avoidable mother and baby deaths every year.<\/p>\n
But last-minute visa refusals meant eminent midwives from Africa and Asia \u2013 where the majority of lives are lost \u2013 were excluded.<\/p>\n
Urgent appeals were lodged for delegates from countries including Nigeria, Ghana, Rwanda, Burundi, Uganda, Tunisia, Ethiopia, Sierra Leone, Bangladesh, India and Indonesia.<\/p>\n
ICM advisor Kate Stringer said: \u201cThese midwives are leaders working in countries that bear the highest burden of deaths.<\/p>\n
\u201cA mother dies every two minutes due to pregnancy or birth. How are we going to intervene if the researchers and professors at the heart of it are banned?<\/p>\n
\u201cThis defies logic. It is a life and death situation, perpetuated by colonial bias.\u201d<\/p>\n
In Uganda, midwife Harriet Akello runs a lifesaving initiative that has caught the attention of the World Health Organization (WHO). She was due to speak in Lisbon on how fragmented, risky maternity systems can reorient to a \u201cmidwifery model of care\u201d \u2013 where a mother is kept safe by a small team of skilled midwives.<\/p>\n
With her work at the NGO Mother Health International, Akello helps overwhelmed public maternity centres pivot to WHO standards, operating in a remote post-conflict region near the border with South Sudan, 95km (60 miles) from a referral hospital.<\/p>\n
Akello said, \u201cThe world\u2019s policymakers are in Lisbon, yet here I am in Uganda, trying to explain to an embassy why I should have the right to travel. I am gutted and insulted. The WHO says we need \u2018midwifery models of care\u2019. I have a rare example of this, but I\u2019ve been silenced.\u201d<\/p>\n
Having recently travelled to Sweden for work, she added: \u201cI was in a Schengen country in the past year. I didn\u2019t overstay \u2013 I have too much to do for mothers in Uganda.\u201d<\/p>\n
Two Bangladeshi midwifery union leaders were denied visas despite a male government official flying to Lisbon to pledge 25,000 extra midwives for the country.<\/p>\n
Similarly, Dr Arthur Munkana from the Democratic Republic of the Congo voiced frustration for four midwives who had to stay behind. \u201cOur country is devastated by mothers dying. Good quality midwives are a key solution \u2013 yet only I got a visa.\u201d<\/p>\n
Stringer called this \u201cgender inequity laid bare\u201d.<\/p>\n
Alison Perry, a researcher at Imperial College London, said a Ugandan midwife she collaborates with was also excluded. \u201cThis represents overt discrimination against equitable participation in international conferences,\u201d she said.<\/p>\n
Portugal\u2019s Ministry of Foreign Affairs said visa assessments happened \u201crigorously, objectively and factually\u201d in line with Schengen rules.<\/p>\n
Globally, about 260,000 women die every year in childbirth, 1.9 million babies are stillborn and there are 2.3 million newborn deaths. About 70% of mothers die in sub-Saharan Africa, with much of the remainder in Asia.<\/p>\n
The WHO has called on governments \u2013 including the UK \u2013 to make \u201cmidwifery models\u201d a core service. The world is a million midwives short of safe staffing levels, according to the ICM.<\/p>\n
This week, the ICM also covered childbirth bleeding, which affects 27 million women a year, kills 43,000 and costs countries more than \u00a37bn. New data published in the Lancet found six critical factors for survival, including accurate, timely diagnosis and access to blood transfusions.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
Visa rejections have threatened progress on mother and baby health after experts from struggling countries were barred from talks, global midwife leaders have said. Politicians, donors and UN agencies convened this week at the International Confederation of Midwives (ICM) congress in Lisbon, Portugal, a key conference to discuss the millions of avoidable mother and baby<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":50518,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[51],"tags":[12230,187,314,10285,11968,1123,37,788,4869,2591,9233],"class_list":{"0":"post-50517","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-health","8":"tag-childbirth","9":"tag-crisis","10":"tag-deaths","11":"tag-denied","12":"tag-frontline","13":"tag-global","14":"tag-health","15":"tag-key","16":"tag-midwives","17":"tag-summit","18":"tag-visas"},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/naijaglobalnews.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/50517","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/naijaglobalnews.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/naijaglobalnews.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/naijaglobalnews.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/naijaglobalnews.org\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=50517"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/naijaglobalnews.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/50517\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/naijaglobalnews.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/media\/50518"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/naijaglobalnews.org\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=50517"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/naijaglobalnews.org\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=50517"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/naijaglobalnews.org\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=50517"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}